Paul Kealy's play of the day at Cheltenham

Conflated has his first crack at this discipline, and it's his mark of 166 that makes it hard for almost everything else.

That said, no horse has won a cross-country handicap in Britain off higher than 156, with the likes of Tiger Roll, Galvin, Delta Work and Minella Indo all failing to do so, the first three for Gordon Elliott.

He was a bitter disappointment in the Charlie Hall (to my pocket in particular), so you have to question whether Conflated is worth his mark now anyway, although it's easy to find fault with his rivals.

The next two in the betting are out of the handicap and one of them is Mister Coffey, who has plenty of good form in the book but seems to want to find new ways of not winning over fences (0-13 in three seasons), while Fameaftertheglory is rated just 115 in Ireland and has to run off 140 here, albeit he looks like a cross-country specialist.

Still, the other two in the weights are the consistent Tommie Beau and Busselton, and with the former arguably better on softer ground, Joseph O'Brien's seven-year-old is the pick.

A winner on the Flat in July (he just missed a run in the Irish Cesarewitch as a reserve), he didn't run at all well when last seen in the Kerry National, but that was on soft ground, and he seems happier on a decent surface.

He won the Kerry National on good ground as a five-year-old in 2022, and a couple of months later finished fifth off 149 in Le Milos's Coral Gold Cup at Newbury, for which he was sent off at just 15-2. If he takes to this discipline, there's every chance he will prove much the best at the weights.

Busselton14:55 Cheltenham

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Jky: Richard Deegan Tnr: Joseph Patrick O'Brien

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