Key Decisions the JP McManus Team Must Make Next Season

Leading Irish owner JP McManus literally has hundreds of horses in training both in the UK and Ireland. Placing those and plotting campaigns for them is no easy task for the legendary gambler, racing manager Frank Berry and advisor Tony McCoy.

We take a look at some of the key decisions the McManus team need to make with some of his star horses for the 2020-21 jumps season.

Hurdles or fences for Dame De Compagnie?

The green and gold silks dominated the winners’ enclosure in the handicap hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival back in March. One of the best punted of the McManus horses at the premier National Hunt meeting in 2020 was the mare Dame De Compagnie trained by Nicky Henderson.

The question now is what to do with her? Dame De Compagnie has been schooled over fences, but her classy Coral Cup victory shows she is a cut above Grade 3 level. Unlike the geldings for whom there is no middle-distance hurdles race at Cheltenham, she could try the Mares’ Hurdle over two-and-a-half miles.

Dame De Compagnie is 12/1 in the ante-post horse racing betting on that race next season with 888Sport but also quoted in the new Mares’ Chase market despite her novice status over the larger obstacles. If Benie Des Dieux goes back to fences and last year’s winner Honeysuckle drops down in trip, she could be real value in the Mares’ Hurdle.

Step chase duo Defi and Fakir up in trip or not?

Two of McManus’s major Grade 1 hopes, Defi Du Seuil and Fakir D’oudairies were defeated over two miles in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and Arkle Challenge Trophy respectively. Both have won at the highest level over further, so that begs the question of whether they should step back up?

Defi Du Seuil was a red-hot odds-on Champion Chase favourite when both Altior and Chacun Pour Soi missed Cheltenham but ran flat for trainer Philip Hobbs. Joseph O’Brien saw Fakir D’oudairies held by game mare Put The Kettle On in the Arkle, meanwhile.

Both McManus horses are quoted in both next year’s Champion Chase and Ryanair Chase betting respectively. He may decide to keep them apart in open company, meaning one must remain over the minimum trip and the other go further.

How to get Sire Du Berlais to Stayers’ Hurdle?

Gordon Elliott has won the last two renewals of the Grade 3 Pertemps Final with Sire Du Berlais. That three-mile handicap is over the same course and distance and Cheltenham card as the Stayers’ Hurdle.

If McManus’s horse is capable of winning the former race carrying heavyweights in success years, then he is surely worth trying at a higher level. Elliott has seen classy mare Apple’s Jade retired to the paddocks by Ireland’s other major jumps owners Gigginstown House Stud, so the way is seemingly clear to run Sire Du Berlais in graded staying hurdle contests in Ireland.

At 14/1 for next year’s Stayers’ Hurdle, he would need to come through the programme of races for the division in the Emerald Isle with credit before those odds got shorter. McManus has had success in this sphere before, so a serious tilt cannot be ruled out.