A very good card at Doncaster on Saturday is highlighted by the valuable Sky Bet Handicap Chase.

Just twelve runners from a possible 20 line up for the race, something in keeping with current field size trends in the country, but it still remains very competitive indeed.

We’ve narrowed the field down by half, these six being the horses we like best:

Main Contenders

Cap Du Nord

Well backed into single figures this week has been Cap Du Nord, possibly due to Christian Williams’ perceived ability to ready his horses for these major handicap events.

Cap Du Nord does indeed have a chance, but as a ten-year-old he’ll need to suddenly recover some form and halt his overall regression.

True, he’s moving swiftly down the weights, but that is because his form has been under par and he’ll need to get at least back the level he showed when running third to Frodon back in November.

Ga Law

Ga Law is 4-7 over fences, so it stands to reason that many will think him an obvious contender here and indeed he is.

He is improving for Jamie Snowden, there’s no doubt about that, but he hasn’t improved in lumps despite his lack of mileage and he’s gone up another 8lbs in the handicap since winning the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham back in November.

He’s had time to recover from that so could handle the increase, but that’s far from certain.

Java Point

Tom George’s Java Point is in a similar category to Ga Law in many respects, though without the major handicap chase win on his CV. He’s 3-8 over fences and is climbing the ladder, but again he isn’t taking massive strides in all truth.

In this case he isn’t going up in the weights quite as severely which gives some hope, though one more step forward is needed for him to be properly competitive here.

Mister Coffey

Nicky Henderson’s Mister Coffey, for want of a much better phrase, has let a few punters down in the past and many will pass him over for this.

His form figures over fences are 322202. He hasn’t won, and seems to run well while always being held which would make you think he is not moving forward. A deeper look reveals something else, however.

Having been handed a mark of 137, his second run over fences was in a handicap in which he ran very well behind Jacamar in second place. Since then, he has run to the same or a similar mark on three more occasions.

On one of those he was behind L’Homme Presse, on another he was a badly-hampered unlucky loser in the Kim Muir and last time he was stuck in the mud at Chepstow.

In quicker conditions he can truly show his best form and he has little excuse now. The pick of his form is more than good enough at these weights and I feel he would have improved plenty had he been racing on ideal ground over the past year or so. Big chance.

Tea For Free

Tea For Free is on a five-time and so is understandably the best backed horse in the race going into the weekend.

Charlie Longsdon’s runner is defending a hitherto unbeaten run over fences and it’s hard to say whether these conditions will allow him to shine, or whether he’d be more comfortable on the soft ground he encountered at Newbury back in December.

In any case, he’s been running against novices and weaker opposition so far while climbing the weights rapidly, so while he is interesting, he is also very vulnerable we feel.

Undersupervision

This horse is definitely in the ‘interesting’ category.

The Twiston-Davies runner won the Grimthorpe Chase here last season, which is a major positive, as is his run on good ground when he was third at Cheltenham from way off the pace back in December.

The problem is that his own bad jumping kept him off the pace at Cheltenham, he has pulled up since, the Grimthorpe was run on very different ground and he is 1-9 over fences overall so there are enough negatives to keep expectations down.

Summary

The up-and-coming Tea For Free, who is unbeaten over fences, and the interesting if not fully reliable Undersupervision most definitely come into calculations here.

Given likely underfoot conditions however, it seems everything is in place finally for Nicky Henderson’s MISTER COFFEY to land a big handicap chase under Nico de Boinville.