Nap of the Day: Inca De Lafayette to get off the mark over fences

We’ve got a busy Monday on our hands this week, with five meetings taking place across Britain and Ireland, and National Hunt racing takes centre stage.

Jumps fixtures from Leicester, Plumpton and Exeter provide the afternoon entertainment, whilst all-weather fixtures from Southwell and Wolverhampton take us through the evening. We’ve had a good look at the day’s cards and picked out our Nap of the Day, who looks well set to make a winning start to his chasing career for Paul Nicholls.

It’s been a slow start to the season for 14-time champion trainer Paul Nicholls, but he achieved a second consecutive victory in the Paddy Power Gold Cup with Il Ridoto at Cheltenham on Saturday.

Many of his first-time-out runners have needed the run badly and that appears to be the case for chase debutant INCA DE LAFAYETTE.

This son of Gris De Gris has won three of his 10 starts over hurdles and there are plenty of pedigree pointers which suggest he can take well to fences. He faces three rivals here and the step back up in trip is likely to suit.

Making his debut for this yard in a Taunton maiden hurdle back in February 2022, he looked like he might be a fair juvenile hurdler to follow.

Harry Cobden held him up behind the leaders and he travelled smoothly throughout the race, before a bad mistake from the eventual third left him in the lead and he pulled clear to score by just shy of five lengths.

His next effort over the same course and distance was therefore a little perplexing, as he was a well beaten third and appeared to weaken rapidly before the second last. The first part of 2023 was tough for him too, as he was well beaten in all three starts.

Wind surgery over that summer clearly did the trick however as he remerged with a 13-length victory in handicap company at Wincanton.

He was far too good for them that day, despite racing too keenly in the early stages of the race, but clearly had plenty left in the tank nonetheless.

Scoring once again when stepping back up to 2m3f at Taunton in January, he saw the trip out well that day and probably had more in hand than the winning margin suggested.

Nicholls’ gelding then got outsprinted over a shorter trip at Taunton although being a bit short of room approaching the last flight wouldn’t have helped his cause.

He appeared to be lacking full sharpness when fifth at Cheltenham on seasonal debut and the trip was probably shorter than ideal for him nowadays.

The biggest danger appears to be recent course and distance scorer Menaggio for Alan King and Tom Cannon. A 4lb rise for that nine-length success looks a little generous but Inca De Lafayette should provide much stiffer competition this time around.

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