RAIN, rain, and yet more rain, led to the cancellation of racing at Cheltenham on Friday, but Saturday’s and Sunday’s cards survived, albeit on ground that was somewhere between soft (more so on Saturday) and heavy.

Some horses coped with it better than others, and Defi Du Seuil coped with it very well indeed in winning the Shloer Chase from last season’s Queen Mother Champion Chase runner-up Politologue.

One thing Defi Du Seuil has demonstrated repeatedly is a rare turn of foot, and a steadily-run contest developed well for him. But he still did well to run down a very smart rival who was not stopping, and his understandably modest timefigure gets boosted to 168 – the new best of the season over jumps – on the back of some very sharp late sectionals. Politologue confirmed his previous best of 166.

The Shloer was run in an overall time 0.3s slower than the Arkle Trial, won by Put The Kettle On, which preceded it, but Defi Du Seuil was fully 3.6s (around 15 lengths) quicker from passing the omitted third last.

Flattered

Put The Kettle On carried less weight, and less than the trio she beat, but it should not be imagined that she was flattered or that her win was all that much of a surprise given the strides she had been making previously. Her win here comes out at 138 after a slight upgrade for sectionals, with Al Dancer (143) and Getaway Trump (134) probably still open to improvement.

A one-on-one comparison on the same card between the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle, won by Harambe, and the Supreme Trial Novices’ Hurdle, won by Hang In There, shows the former to have been faster later on but the latter to have been slightly faster overall.

After a small amount of sectional adjustment, Harambe comes out with a 141 figure (Gumball 149 and Monsieur Lecoq on 146), with Hang In There on 140 and the penalised runner-up to him Pacify on 142. Both races should prove to be pretty solid form.

Bumper

That may not be the case with the concluding bumper won by Israel Champ in a dreadful overall time (mere 40 timefigure) and with a late burn-up in which the principals ran about 20 lengths quicker from two out than those hurdlers had done earlier.

The Cheltenham card on the preceding day had kicked off with a solid win in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle from Thyme Hill, running to 143.

He was quicker overall but quite a bit slower late on than was Jatiluwih in winning a handicap later, and the latter gets a 147 figure – the best by a novice hurdler so far this campaign – after sectionals have been factored back in.

Wholestone had plenty in his favour in the three-mile novice chase and obliged, if not especially impressively, with a 132-rated effort.

Allmankind went to the top of the juvenile hurdling tree with a 132-rated win in the Triumph Hurdle Trial, though his free-going nature may find him out against better and stouter stayers than this.

There were good handicap wins on the Saturday for the enigmatic West Approach (148 on account of slick late splits), Happy Diva (150) in quite an attritional BetVictor Gold Cup and a rejuvenated Golan Fortune (139). Slate House was alongside and odds-on when falling two out in the second of those and deserves to be rated in the region of 155 (best by a novice chaser this term) as a result.

Urban Artist’s 114-rated win in the concluding mares’ listed bumper looks solid for the grade and did at least come in a truly-run affair with a finishing speed of around 96% of the average race speed.