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Horse Racing: Gordon Elliott warns Samcro has to improve again to win at Cheltenham

Samcro
Samcro, who will spearhead Gordon Elliott’s Cheltenham Festival team in March.Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

Gordon Elliott, who expects to saddle two odds-on favourites at next month’s Cheltenham Festival, said here on Sunday that he will send a record team of horses to the meeting as he attempts to finish as the week’s top trainer for the second year running.

Elliott saddled six winners from 29 runners at last year’s Festival, but his impressive strike-rate of 20% was despite the performances of the four favourites in his team. Three failed to finish while Tombstone, the 7-2 market leader for the Coral Cup, finished 22nd.

Six winners was still sufficient for Elliott to edge out Willie Mullins, the top trainer in four of the previous five seasons, on a countback of placed horses. Punters will hope for a better showing from Elliott’s most fancied runners, however, with both Samcro, a 4-5 chance for the Ballymore Novice Hurdle, and Apple’s Jade, 4-6 for the Mares’ Hurdle, among the “30 to 40 horses” the trainer will send to the west country.

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Samcro ran away with the Grade One Deloitte Novice Hurdle last time out but despite his cramped odds, Elliott feels he still needs to improve to win next month.

“He’s done everything right but he still has to keep improving,” the trainer said. “It’s a bit step up for him again at Cheltenham. It’s the first time he’s travelled from Ireland to England to race and that can often be a big ask too. Last year, we took Death Duty [who started at 13-8 favourite for the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle] and we thought he’d win, but he didn’t travel and got very light.

“Samcro’s a good horse but has to prove it. Apple’s Jade [who won last year’s Mares Hurdle] has been there and proved it [before]. Some people said we should go for the Champion Hurdle or the Stayers’, but I think it’s our best chance of winning a race at the Festival, so that’s the way she’ll go.”

Elliott’s squad for the Festival will also include Cause Of Causes, who has been successful at the meeting for the last three seasons and will attempt to win the Cross Country Chase for the second year running.

“If he could go back and win there for a fourth time, that would mean more than any winner I could have [over the week],” Elliott said. “He loves it when the sun comes out at this time of year and he seems to love Cheltenham.”

Mullins is the 6-5 favourite to finish as the leading trainer at the Festival. Elliott is a 2-1 chance while Nicky Henderson, the first British trainer in the list, is 9-4, and it is 25-1 bar the three.