Hussard Collonges to be saved for Cheltenham

Hussard Collonges, who sidestepped a trip to Ireland on Sunday, will not have another outing before the Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup but will make a couple of racecourse visits as part of his Festival build up.

Peter Beaumont had considered taking on Beef Or Salmon and company with his 2002 Royal & SunAlliance Chase hero in the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Leopardstown.

The Brandsby trainer won that race three times in a row with Jodami (1993-95) who went on to complete the Hennessy – Cheltenham Gold Cup double in ’93.

But he said: “Of course it would be lovely to have tried to win the Leopardstown race but if we had taken Hussard Collonges across then the Gold Cup would have been his fifth tough one of the season.

“He is in very good form and what we will do is give him a racecourse gallop or two before the Festival and I will be happy enough with that.”

Hussard Collonges is one of Beaumont’s three Martell Grand National entries having been allotted 11st 7lb, but he will not entertain thoughts of the Aintree marathon for him until after the Festival.

However, the trainer is looking forward to running Bobby Grant and hopefully Niki Dee in it, and he added: “Bobby will go for the Red Square Vodka Gold Cup Chase at Haydock first, I am happy with him too – I think he is nicely handicapped with 10st 6lb at Aintree and that will be all right for Russ (Garritty) even if the weights do not go up.”

Niki Dee was a fourth fence faller in last year’s National and then reappeared at Perth three weeks later, but Beaumont went on: “A leg flared up again and he was pulled, so we had to lay him off and give him more time – he is going the right way now and we hope to get him there, but he has only 9st 5lb and he’s not sure to get in.”