Morris succeeds

Trainer Michael Morris and owner David Lloyd have won their appeal against the decision of the acting stewards at Navan last Saturday to fine the trainer £500 and disqualify His Song from running for 42 days .

His Song's rider, David Casey, who was suspended for seven racedays for insufficient effort, had his appeal dismissed but had his suspension reduced to two days (December 26th-27th).

This means that Casey will be free to ride Sackville in the Ericsson Chase next Friday.

It was confirmed yesterday that Paris Pike will be the only British challenger for the Ericsson.

The Ferdy Murphy-trained gelding is one of 14 preliminary entries for the three-miles test which also include Mary Reveley's Sleeping Night who, however, will be an absentee. Francois Doumen's First Gold and the Willie Mullins-trained Florida Pearl figure in the list but they are due to head for the Pertemps King George V1 Chase at Kempton, weather permitting.

Mullins, however, plans to run Alexander Banquet in the Leopardstown race.

Murphy is delighted with the way Paris Pike came out of his seasonal return when runner-up to Weaver George at Kelso earlier this month, and he said: "He is very good form, bucking and kicking and I could not be happier with him.

"He will go over on Boxing Day with Granit D'Estruval, who runs in the Paddy Power Chase on the day before the Ericsson. He is in good form too and Adrian (Maguire) of course will ride both." Sleeping Night ran a cracker when second best to Sackville in the Peterhouse Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby, but then ran below expectations in the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon.

Mrs Reveley's son Keith said: "He won't go to Ireland, he is all right, but we are going to give him a bit more time. He is not in at Wetherby and we don't have any firm plans for him at the moment."

Meanwhile, Richard Hughes, who has been out of action for over 10 weeks with a broken leg, is confident that he will be back race-riding in February. He broke his left tibia in a fall at Newmarket on October 6th and will go to hospital on Christmas Eve to have the plaster removed.

He said yesterday: "I am not getting any pain in the leg really and I haven't been bored during my absence, I have been watching my father's horses work every morning and seeing how they are progressing so that has been very interesting."