JOCKEY Graham Lee will be fit to ride when the Cheltenham Festival gets under way tomorrow despite a scare over the weekend.
The North East-based jockey has several good rides at jump racing’s four-day extravaganza. His boss Ferdy Murphy’s Kalahari King, who is a 5-1 second favourite with Coral, Blue Square, bet365 and Victor Chandler for Wednesday’s Queen Mother Chase, is one horse he is hoping can give him a fifth Festival winner.
But yesterday he decided to give up his two rides at Towcester. Lee took a heavy fall from Mansonn Leda in a novices’ handicap hurdle at Ayr on Friday, but continued to ride on Saturday.
He managed to land a handicap chase aboard Seize for Murphy at the Scottish venue. But he decided to have a day off yesterday.
Lee, who will partner outsider Won In the Dark in tomorrow’s Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle, said: “I banged my knee in the fall, and I’m not quite right so I decided to take a couple of days off. I’ll be fine though, and I’m looking forward to riding at Cheltenham on Tuesday.”
Won In The Dark, who is trained by Sabrina Hartym is a 66-1 with Ladbrokes, Coral, William Hill Stan James and Sky bet to win the Champion Hurdle.
The six-year-old was one of 12 horses who were declared for tomorrow’s feature race on the opening day of the Festival.
Heading the entries is the general 7-2 favourite Go Native, who will bid to land a £1million bonus in the two-mile hurdling championship event.
Noel Meade’s charge could land the £1m after winning both the Fighting Fifth and Christmas Hurdles this term, with betting firm WBX.com putting up the extra incentive for completing the hat-trick.
Fellow Irish raider Solwhit – the 6-1 second favourite with William Hill, Stan James, bet365 and Victor Chandler – has been declared by trainer Charles Byrnes despite suffering a minor setback in the last week.
Nicky Henderson has three strong chances in reigning champion Punjabi; last year’s third Binocular and 2009 Triumph Hurdle hero Zaynar.
Champion trainer Paul Nicholls has last year’s runner-up Celestial Halo with the Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained Khyber Kim and Alan King’s Medermit also leading fancies. Starluck, Jumbo Rio and Raise Your Heart, Donnas Palm, Ebadiyan and Muirhead complete the line-up.
After a sunny and breezy day at Prestbury Park yesterday Cheltenham clerk of the course Simon Claisse said the Festival could open on ground slightly quicker than the current going of good to soft, good in places.
With the weather set to stay dry for much of the week and watering on the Old Course ruled out, Claisse said: “At this time of year, the top layer dries out in the breeze, but there’s plenty of moisture in the ground. It’s slowly drying out and I wouldn’t rule out that at some point on Tuesday we might well end up good, good to soft in places.
“I can’t predict when, though, as I can’t second guess the rate at which it dries out as that depends on a combination of the sun, the strength of the wind and the direction of the wind.”
With Cheltenham’s own forecast predicting between 2.5mm and 3.5mm of rain on Thursday and up to 3mm on Friday, Claisse has delayed a decision on watering of the New Course, used on Thursday and Friday, until today at the earliest.
Meanwhile Philip Hobbs thinks Qaspal will need luck just to get a run at Cheltenham, never mind landing the Paddy Power bonus.
Ridden by Tony McCoy, the six-year-old landed Saturday’s Paddy Power Imperial Cup by two lengths from stable-mate Oldrik.
The sponsors put up a £75,000 bonus for any horse landing that race and winning the Festival. And although the JP McManus-owned gelding picked up a 5lb penalty for that success he is not guaranteed a run at the Festival. He is entered in the Vincent O’Brien County Handicap Hurdle and the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle. But Hobbs said: “We’ll just have to play it by ear and see what happens during the week.”
TODAY’S NAP: Tiger O’Toole (5.20pm Taunton).
