McCoy favourite for Kauto ride as Fehily suffers wrist injury
Fehily has struck up a fruitful partnership with Paul Nicholls in recent weeks after stable jockey Ruby Walsh broke his leg in a fall at Down Royal at the beginning of November.
Fehily was riding Rivaliste for the champion trainer in the sportingbet.com Handicap Chase at the Berkshire track when the pair came down at the sixth fence.
Nicholls immediately moved to secure the services of McCoy for Neptune Collonges in the Hennessy Gold Cup today. He will also ride reigning staying champion Big Buck’s on his return in the sportingbet.com Long Distance Hurdle.
Nicholls said: “He’s gone off to hospital — we don’t know how bad it is, but I’m gutted for him
“AP is riding Big Buck’s and Neptune tomorrow.”
Fehily was taken to Ridgeway Hospital and his agent Chris Broad said: “He thinks he may have broken his wrist. We’ll just have to see what happens.”
It is a major blow for the rider, who only last weekend partnered Master Minded to victory at Ascot, and was due to keep the ride in the Tingle Creek at Sandown next Saturday.
It was also announced on Tuesday that Fehily would ride Kauto Star in the King George.
Champion jockey McCoy was full of sympathy for Fehily.
He said: “For Noel to have taken his chance like he has and then for this to happen, that’s the disappointment of being a jump jockey — it’s very much a day-to-day basis you live by.’’
Nicholls, meanwhile, has called time on Celestial Halo’s novice chasing adventure after the top-class hurdler again proved a disappointment over fences at Newbury.
Nicholls maintains the 2009 Champion Hurdle runner-up jumps soundly at home and wrote off his fall at Exeter last month as a minor aberration, but the Fuller’s London Pride Novices’ Chase revealed more glaring concerns.
Celestial Halo’s speed salvaged third but he was comfortably beaten by Cois Farraig, who was strengthening Paul Webber’s hand in this division following the impressive recent success of Time For Rupert.
The two-and-a-half-mile Grade Two also proved the undoing of Nicky Henderson’s 10-11 favourite Spirit River, who crashed out six from home, while Celestial Halo became increasingly hesitant and ploughed right through the third-last.
Cois Farraig (10-1), third in a strong heat at Ascot last month, was always prominent and jumped professionally under Dominic Elsworth, evading the belated challenge of On Borrowed Wings to win by two and three-quarter lengths.
Nicholls said: “The open ditch finished him and Noel Fehily said he was going into the fences all right, but then backing off.
“He schools really well but he just didn’t like it. He’ll go back hurdling now and there are plenty of races (champion staying hurdler) Big Buck’s won’t run in.”
Webber said: “He has always been a very natural jumper and we’ll have to make a new plan for him now — I thought we would be off to another beginners’ chase after this!
“Time For Rupert will have to wake up now!”
* RACING at Wolverhampton last night was abandoned after just four races.
Fashionable Girl stumbled and unseated her rider on leaving the stalls in the Stay At The Wolverhampton Holiday Inn Maiden Stakes, won by Masterful Act, prompting concerns about the Polytrack surface.
A considerable delay to the scheduled fifth race at 6pm eventually saw the jockeys return from the start, after which the decision to abandon was made.
