RACING:THE MULTIPLE Grade One winner Solwhit will miss out on next week's Cheltenham Festival and is likely to miss the rest of this season too in readiness for a novice chase campaign next term.
Trainer Charles Byrnes confirmed yesterday that his stable star was not pleasing him in his preparation for the Ladbrokes World Hurdle and so will not tackle Big Buck’s in the stayers’ crown on Thursday week.
“He’s just not sparking so he won’t be going. We will concentrate now on a chasing career. He won’t be going to Aintree either. We will probably school him over fences instead and leave it at that,” said the Co Limerick trainer yesterday.
Solwhit had originally been ruled out of Cheltenham after finishing runner-up to Hurricane Fly in the Irish Champion Hurdle in January but the Byrnes team had a change of heart and proposed a first attempt at three miles for the horse in the World Hurdle.
Solwhit had been a general 14 to 1 shot for the day three festival highlight but instead Byrnes’s festival energies will now be concentrated on Alfa Beat’s attempt on the four-mile National Hunt Chase.
“That’s the plan at the moment and he is in good form,” said the trainer who scored at the last two Cheltenham Festivals with Weapons Amnesty.
“We also have Domination in the Fred Winter but he’s been given a lot of weight so we’ll have to see about him.”
Next week’s racing focus will be on Cheltenham but a little bit of history will take place at home in Wexford’s St Patrick’s Day card when the first veterans’ chase in Ireland will be run off.
Already established in Britain, veterans races are designed for horses of 10 years of age or older and provide valuable opportunities for runners who might not be well handicapped or past their prime. Last year’s Bet 365 Gold Cup winner Church Island had won a veterans chase at Doncaster the year before.
Horse Racing Ireland’s Director of Racing, Jason Morris, reported to Irishracing.com: “It’s the first of its kind in Ireland and we thought we’d try one out just to see how it’ll work. We thought if we were going to do it, we’d do it for good horses but who are struggling to carry big weights in handicaps. This gives them a chance against their own age group.
“We’ve looked through the handicap rating files and there does appear to be quite a number of horses that would be eligible for it.”
Colm Murphy’s dual Grade Two winner Quito De La Roque is poised to run in the festivals four-mile National Hunt Chase rather than the RSA Chase.
The seven-year-old has only been beaten once over fences, and that was by Bostons Angel in the Grade One Fort Leney Novice Chase. He is one of a number of leading chances for Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud at the Cheltenham Festival next week. “I’d say it’s more than likely than he’ll run in the four-miler,” said Murphy.
“You can never be confident of any horse staying four miles, but I wouldn’t have thought the trip would bother him as he’s got plenty of stamina.
“But I’d say if it’s quick ground he wouldn’t even go.”
