Nicky Henderson’s exciting novice chaser Sprinter Sacre could take a highly unusual path to the Irish Independent Arkle Chase at the Cheltenham Festival on March 13, bidding for the Grade 2 Game Spirit Chase at Ascot in February as a warm-up for the two-mile novice chasing crown instead of the conventional route of competing against other first-season chasers, writes Elliot Slater.
Third to Al Ferof in last season’s Supreme Novices Hurdle at Cheltenham on what turned out to be his final start of the campaign, the son of Network has produced two scintillating performance since switching to the larger obstacles this term, jumping like an old hand and cruising to victory on his debut over fences at Doncaster where he beat the decent previous winner Lightening Rod by an eased down 24-lengths. Immediately stepped up to Grade 2 company Henderson’s charge took on the highly regarded Peddlers Cross in the Wayward Lad Novices Chase at Kempton’s Christmas meeting and dealt Donald McCain’s smart performer a significant blow in slamming him by 16-lengths to usurp last season’s Champion Hurdle runner-up as favourite for the Arkle Chase at current odds of 5/2 – Peddler’s Cross is now a 5/1 chance and Al Ferof is offered at 7/1 in the online Cheltenham Festival betting markets.
Henderson has marked out the Game Sprit Chase as a potential pre-Cheltenham contest for his very exciting young horse and reasons that hacking around against lesser opposition is unlikely to teach the gelding very much and that a real race against seasoned campaigners should give him the match practice he will need to be on his mettle for what will surely be a red-hot race for the Arkle Trophy. The Seven Barrows handler reports his horse to be so well in himself that he is having to canter him every day in order to stop him proving too much of a handful at home.
Cheltenham Festival betting markets, Nicky Henderson, Sprinter Sacre
