CHELTENHAM NEWS:THE LEADING Champion Hurdle contender Solwhit is a doubt for next week's Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle, but that isn't provoking Dunguib's trainer Philip Fenton into a late change of festival plans for his star novice.
Dunguib is an odds-on favourite for Tuesday’s festival opener at Cheltenham, the Spinal Research Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, but also still remains among the 24 entries for the Champion.
Earlier in the season, Fenton said that if some of the leading contenders dropped out of the Champion, Dunguib’s connections might consider taking on senior horses in the big race.
Yesterday, Solwhit’s trainer, Charles Byrnes, admitted it is very much in the balance if his horse will make the festival at all after a dirty scope. It comes on the back of uncertainty about Binocular’s participation as well as a defeat at Kelso last month for another major English hope, Zaynar.
But Fenton is sticking by his original plans for Dunguib.
“We will stick with our route and probably take him out of the Champion Hurdle at the entry stage on Wednesday,” he said yesterday.
“There are no problems with our horse thankfully and we’re happy with him.”
Things were much gloomier at the Byrnes stable in Co Limerick and Solwhit has drifted out to 6 to 1 in ante-post betting for the Champion Hurdle after yesterday’s downbeat bulletin.
“Things are very much in the balance with Solwhit as he has scoped dirty and we’ve put him on antibiotics,” Byrnes said yesterday.
“The plan had been to send the horse to England on Saturday morning but that will have to be put on hold now. We will see how he is again later in the week and see how it is looking,” he added.
After two Grade Two victories at the back end of last season, Solwhit has continued to progress this term with three more Grade One successes, including the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown on his last start in January.
The ex-French gelding had been disputing favouritism with Go Native before yesterday’s news.
“It is obviously very disappointing as he has never given any indication anything was wrong, apart from one cough,” Byrnes reported. “We are going to see how he reacts to the antibiotics and make a late decision.”
The Cheltenham authorities were planning to start watering late yesterday in an attempt to produce ground on the soft side of good for the start of the festival. The going continued to be officially good to soft yesterday with some good patches.
That wasn’t particularly good news for the Go Native team who are in pursuit of a £1 million bonus from WBX.com after landing both the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton earlier in the season.
“The ground at Kempton was against him – it was tacky – and that’s what he doesn’t want,” Go Native’s trainer Noel Meade said yesterday.
“I’m sure a lot of trainers of soft ground horses will welcome the watering, but there are those of us who don’t really want it. The danger is if they get it wrong, or it rains heavily overnight – you just never know.
“But he handled it last year in the Supreme when it was good to soft and it had rained on Monday night. He is in fine form and we are just counting down the days,” he added.
One Grade One winner who doesn’t have the Cheltenham Festival in his sights is Dessie Hughes’s Punchestown Festival hero Rare Bob, who ran third at the weekend at Naas under topweight and could go next to Liverpool for the Aintree Bowl.
“It’s a shame it is getting a bit late in the season but he has had one or two hold-ups since we hobdayed him and at least we have him right again now,” Hughes said yesterday.
“He has a couple of options in the Aintree Bowl and the An Uaimh Chase at Navan (March 27th). While it is a bit late in the season, if we can get him to Punchestown again, I’ll be very happy.
“We went into Sunday thinking he would need it and he blew up so I was happy enough with him,” he added.
