2020 King George VI Chase

Below are our free 2020 King George VI Chase tips from WhichBookie tipster Will Smith. Take a look at more of Will’s hot racing tips on our betting tips page and remember to check back soon for the latest free betting tips across a range of sports.

Clan Des Obeaux – 11/2 (Bet365)

Real Steel – 40/1 each-way (Ladbrokes)

Whisper it quietly, but with the Betfair ‘will UK racing resume on or before June 1st’ market trading just a shade under 1.5, anticipation is building for racing to resume in a functional and considered manner. Nothing is more important than public health, but we can now start to hope it seems.

Forgive me for not looking at the flat season just yet, but with so many doubts about how the 2020 season may look, and in the case of ante-post races such as the Classics – the travel doubts for the various Irish battalions remain.

So, it is to the King George VI Chase market that I turn, and turn being the operative word. As the more I look at the prices and potential runners, the more I turn back to the 11/2 with Bet365, about dual winner Clan Des Obeaux.

Paul Nicholls’ star chaser was sent off 12/1 and 11/2 for the last two renewals, and unless something unprecedented emerges in the interim 8 months, I see no reason why Clan Des Obeaux doesn’t go off nearer the 2/1 mark come the day.

Absolutely perfectly suited to the rigours of the 3 miles around Kempton and in the knowledge that he will be trained for the race, there is no real reason to state my case for Clan Des Obeaux – if you can’t see it, then you shouldn’t be in this game!

But what I will display to you, is the negatives about all his credible rivals, who are most prominent in the market.

Lostintranslation ran a belter in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but hugging the inside on the fresh ground there in a race run at a slowish tempo really played to his strengths. Witness his lifeless effort in last year’s King George, and you can see why a good clip around Kempton, allied to just a slight tendency to shift left at his fences, and you can see why Lostintranslation is passed over at his odds of 8/1.

Next in are Champ and Santini at a best price of 10/1 each. Champ undoubtedly has a mighty engine, but I struggle to recall any past King George winner that has the potential to lose ground at virtually every fence. He is more likely to win a Cheltenham Gold Cup. Comments which so nearly applied to Santini, who also ran really well in the 2019 Gold Cup, but again he has previously shown himself unsuited to Kempton in the 2018 Kauto Star Novice’s Chase.

Various other high-quality horses are quoted at double figure prices, most of them Irish-trained chasers, who would also have the option of the Grade 1 Savills Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas.

But in terms of an each-way flyer, I am going to recommend one such Irish chaser – the Willie Mullins-trained Real Steel at 40/1 with William Hill.

Mullins is never averse to sending over runners to Kempton at Christmas time, and in the King George itself he has run Footpad in 2019, Vautour and Valseur Lido in 2015, and Champagne Fever in 2014.

He has any number of horses quoted for the King George that would be more suited to Leopardstown over Christmas, in the shape of Kemboy, Allaho, Min, Melon, Salsaretta. However, one who I have long believed to be a potential Kempton-type horse, but doubted whether he had the requisite class to run well in a Grade 1 chase, is Real Steel.

Mightily impressive over 2m4f and on various right-handed tracks across the Irish Sea, I urge you to go back and watch a re-run of the 2019 Cheltenham Gold Cup, and tell me that Real Steel didn’t travel like a Grade 1 horse. He was the last off the bridle, and if you were an in-running punter who has little regard for previous form, you would have backed him down to a very skinny price!

It was a run, that to me, screamed of being a genuine Grade 1 winner in waiting, and I thought that Punchestown could have been that occasion. Obviously, that has fallen by the wayside, but the only reason that he is 40/1 is the doubt that he would turn up at Kempton in 8 months’ time. He is a very, very good horse, and I’m willing to risk the chance he doesn’t run to take a bit of 40/1.