There will always be exceptions but there should have been more than we have seen so far to be of interest .
You normally want a champion chaser to be be about 50% S/R, and anything below 33% is a negative, however, things are rarely that straight forward
If you're profiling horses, there are various ways of doing it (not exactly my own theory, but worth going over)
You can look through a horses performance profile for patterns based on correlating a performance with the variables that can impact on a performance with the objective to taking view of cause and effect. Statistically you can do this using something called a coefficient of determination. Most people don't quite go this far though. A lot of the patterns you spot by simply studying profiles. I've already offered the seasonal pattern in Champagne Fever as an example of a performance key. Make of it what you will.
There is a lot of statistical rubbish spoken about horses being 80% fit (or 20% unfit if you look at it the other way round). If a horse hits 20% more fences, has lost 20% of its acceleration, has had it's stamina reduced by 20% etc what do you think the cumulative effects of all this will be? It'll lose. On the apex of most sports, the gap between the top competitors is much narrower than the "20%" that commentators use as a lazy default, and things tend to be settled on finer margins than this. For that reason it's always useful to know what conditions have been prominent when a horse has achieved his optimal performance. When he's likely to face those again you consider backing him, if he isn't, then clearly he's better off swerved.
For simplicity though it might be easier to reverse engineer this process and performance profile the variables in the race. In this case we know what some of them are, and can take an informed view about the others
Cheltenham is a left handed, undulating track, the race distance is 2 miles (you could try and build in additional factors like going, field size, or pace)
It's really runs that the horse has put up under these conditions that you should be giving prominence too. In this case the only time Champagne Fever has met them over fences was last years Arkle, where were it not for a nose, he'd have won. If you're prepared to stretch it out to hurdles and NHF you might bring his other runs into play.
At the end of the day, 3 miles right handed on a flat course at kempton won't have much bearing on 2 miles round Cheltenham. It's like invoking a England's test record against Sri Lanka, as evidence as to why they'll win a T20. Sure some of the disciplines are the same, and there is some transfer, but we are talking about radically different disciplines and applications there of.
As things stand, the best piece of form that Champagne Fever has by way of pointer to his most likely performance, should be the Arkle.
On the clock at least, it would have been good enough to win last years Champion Chase, but that's too simplistic to use quite so crudely. I just happen to think last years Arkle was actually quite good, and that it was the 2 mile Champion Chase that was weak (proximity of Somersby and Module?).
The finishing order is - Sprinter Sacre, Champagne Fever, Special Tiara
..problem is there are many that do not come back..and by that i mean the same as before they went