ONE can hardly turn around but for bumping into a good race at Christmas but the jewel in the crown for me is the Savills Chase, the Leopardstown chase track one of those circuits that produces finishes of high drama again and again, A Plus Tard and Galvin just two memorable ones this decade.

The Savills tends to be a race for younger, less exposed horses with only one winner since 2006 being older than eight, second season chasers often doing well.

In that period only Tidal Bay was in the veteran stage and while the last two winners Galvin and Conflated were slightly more experienced, the majority of those successful had a relative handful of chase starts coming into the race, most have yet to reach 10 runs over fences.

With that in mind, Appreciate It is the horse that interests me most. He is perhaps older than ideal at nine and it could be argued this is not a major target race for his trainer; Willie Mullins has won the Savills twice versus 12 wins in the Irish Gold Cup over the same track and trip five weeks later.

Unexposed

Appreciate It is unexposed however, missing a year between March 2021 and March 2022, and with just six starts over fences.

Those six starts came in a short space of time between December 19th and April 25th last season, an untypically large number of starts for a Mullins-trained novice chaser, though perhaps understandable given he was late starting over fences.

Whatever the reason for that intense campaign, I am not sure he always showed his form, and that view might be supported by a career-best, at least over fences, in the John Durkan on his return this term, freshened up by a 215-day break.

He had the run of the race in front there, setting a steady pace, but against that his jumping was excellent and he promises to be suited by a return to a left-handed track as he adjusted that way for much of the race, his rider Patrick reporting same post-race.

His past profile would also suggest that he will improve plenty for the run and he has an excellent record at Leopardstown (form figures:1113).

Fastorslow beat him last time but only by a half-length and the discrepancy between the two in the market is big, especially as Fastorslow may be more suited to going right-handed (has adjusted that way on his last two runs on left-handed tracks).