Scooby seeking hurdles boost
His trainer Martin Keighley is looking for a confidence-booster for his charge after he was an early casualty over fences at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day.
Keighley already has one eye on the Festival for the seven-year-old with the Centenary Novices’ Handicap Chase as his target.
“It was a very soft fall last week. He jumped the fence fine but then slipped on landing,” said Keighley.
“I’m just looking for a confidence-booster really, that’s why we’ve gone back over hurdles with him.
“All his Cheltenham options are over fences and the race I’ve got my eye on is a 0-140.
“He’s rated 137 at present so I don’t want to go winning over fences and blowing his mark.
“We’re dropping him back to two miles but that shouldn’t matter as the ground is pretty soft and it’s a stiff two miles at Sandown.”
The yard of Grand National-winning trainer Venetia Williams has awoken from its early slumber and she expects Ciceron to run better than he has done of late.
Still only a six-year-old, he has yet to trouble the judge in two runs this season when the stable was out of form, but Williams took some comfort from his last performance at Ascot and expects him to run well.
“Ciceron actually ran better than the bare result (13th) in the Ladbroke,” said Williams.
“He made a mistake early which set him back a bit but then made some progress before that eventually took its toll.
“I think he’ll run well.”
Meanwhile, Donald McCain is banking on a sounder surface and more forceful tactics to improve Wymott’s fortunes in the 32Red.com HBLB Handicap Chase.
The high-class novice ran a highly respectable sixth in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury on his seasonal return, but was pulled up when favourite for the Tommy Whittle at Haydock.
McCain said: “We’ll be a lot more positive tomorrow and hopefully he runs a better race.”
