Punchestowns set to swerve Cheltenham, reveals Henderson

NICKY HENDERSON has effectively ruled Punchestowns out of the Cheltenham Festival and is considering giving the chestnut a run at the racecourse which has lent him his name.

Although entered in both the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Ladbrokes World Hurdle, Henderson is looking away from those events.

Punchestowns finally managed a win this season with a fairly unconvincing defeat of Pasco at Kempton last month.

“I think we can say Punchestowns won’t be here,” the trainer said yesterday.

“I don’t think he’ll win a Gold Cup or a World Hurdle so we are better to stay out of it. There’s Aintree and we’ve always said he should run at Punchestown one year. Maybe it could be this year. That would be over fences.”

Henderson admitted the publication of the weights for the Festival handicaps had thrown him into confusion.

His Molotof is the top weight for the Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle while A Media Luz, who was to be diverted to the Triumph Hurdle instead, has 11st 4lb.

“Our plans have rather fallen out of synch, especially with the four-year-olds,” he said.

“What we thought was sorted a fortnight ago has now fallen out of order — some are now in and some are now out — and we need to go away and have a think.”

Henderson said it was “more likely than unlikely” that Riverside Theatre would contest the Ryanair Chase after a brief chat with connections this week while he has not made up his mind about a Cheltenham target for French Opera.

The Game Spirit Chase winner is top weight of 11st 12lb — 6lb higher than next best Tchico Polos — in the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase.

However much the trainer would like to win the event commemorating his father, he is also considering the sportingbet.com Queen Mother Champion Chase.

“I haven’t discussed it with the owner yet,” he said.

“He and Mad Max are in both races. On the one hand it could help horses like Anquetta at the bottom of the weights, and I could claim off French Opera, but on the other they all have different owners.”

Meanwhile Cheltenham’s clerk of the course Simon Claisse reported the ground to be on the soft side yesterday.

There are less than two weeks remaining before the start of the Festival and Claisse said: “The going is officially soft, good to soft in places and a bit quicker on the cross-country course.

“Over the next week or so the forecast is pretty much the same as it is now — frosts at night and relatively cold.’’

Any chance of the Festival being moved to include a Saturday will wait until the racecourse has completed a possible redevelopment. Without revealing any figures, managing director Edward Gillespie hopes some restructuring can start to happen at the course over the next couple of years, and said any building work will not affect the big meeting of the year from taking place at its usual home.

“We will have an approved design team working on what could well be a future development here,” said Gillespie.

“I am as close to confident as I dare to be that there is a clear appreciation by Jockey Club Racecourses to get the infrastructure right before we rearrange the race meeting.”