Lalor has hallmarks of horse on his way right to the top of chasing tree

Whether you follow your heart or your head it’s hard to disagree with Lalor being favourite for the Racing Post Arkle.

Our handicapper Steve Mason described the RPR of 160 given to Lalor for his emphatic winning chase debut at Cheltenham earlier this month as “no mean feat” and from a stats perspective the Kayley Woollacott-trained six-year-old, who signed off last season with a first Grade 1 victory in the Betway Top Novices' Hurdle at Aintree, has the hallmarks in keeping with a number of star chasers of recent years.

It’s unusual for a chase debutant to achieve an RPR of 150-plus – only half of one per cent of debutants in Britain and Ireland managed it from the 2010-11 season onwards – and extremely rare for one to reach a 160 RPR first time out. When excluding horses who had run previously in a French chase, Lalor is only the seventh to reach that standard in this period.