RACING News: Noel Meade is considering changing Wild Passion's Cheltenham target after the gelding ran below his trainer's expectations in the ladbrokes.com Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown on Saturday.
Meath had been planning a tilt at the extended two-mile Supreme Novices' Hurdle with the five-year-old, but is now thinking about running him in the Royal & SunAlliance Hurdle over two miles five instead.
"All along the plan has been the Supreme Novices', but after yesterday I will enter him in the SunAlliance as well," said Meade.
Wild Passion went down by a total of six lengths in the Grade One contest won by the prolific scorer Marcel and despite feeling his charge ran below form, Meade reported him to be fine yesterday morning. "I've been told that he seems okay, but he won't arrive home until later today," he said.
"We didn't scope him after the race but I do hope that yesterday wasn't his best run. I don't like to be making excuses all the time when they are beat, but we have had a few run bad - there is no doubt about it.
"I was very confident going into yesterday's race that he was all right and he didn't blow excessively after the race, but he jumped the last two hurdles like a tired horse. I thought he would win turning in but he didn't find anything and jumped the last two more like they were obstacles - I was just so disappointed."
Wild Passion may next run in the Deloitte at Leopardstown on February 6th.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)