Limerick Boy out of Ladbroke
Connections of the five-year-old have been looking for a big-race target to reaffirm his potential after being pulled up at Newbury last time out.
"It is mainly due to the ground that we are not running, but we still haven't got to the bottom of what was wrong with him on his last start," Graham Skeats, racing manager to owner's Favourite's Racing, said yesterday.
The Venetia Williams-trained entire was pulled up in the race formerly known as the Gerry Feilden Hurdle after travelling well for most of the contest.
Meanwhile, Barry Fenton failed today in his bid to overturn a 10-day suspension imposed against him for breaching Rule 158 over the running and riding of Highway Robbery at Exeter earlier this month.
The rider went to Portman Square hoping to persuade the stewards that the original conclusion of the local officials on December 5 that he had failed to take "all reasonable and permissible measures in order to obtain the best-possible placing" was wrong.
But after hearing his evidence, the stewards threw out his appeal and re-imposed the original suspension with the dates put back to December 26 to January 7 ruling him out of the lucrative Christmas programme.
