Theres an argument to be made that if he wants to get ricci a winner, going for the champion with lossie might be easier than going for the mares.
If you were to go off official ratings, beating wodhooh off levels should be harder than beating golden ace off levels, and beating the new lion when getting 7lbs. Brighterdaysahead is the only one that should be harder to beat than wodhooh on ratings, but she's underwhelmed on both runs at cheltenham, so theres real doubt whether she'll run near her 160 rating there.
Imo theres enough doubt about which race is harder to win, that it would be baffling if they went for the smaller race, especially when they have nothing else in the champion that theyd be confident in.