Chives set for Hennessy date

Chives looks set to have his next start in the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup after he was pulled out of the Edward Hanmer Chase at Haydock yesterday on veterinary advice.

Henrietta Knight’s smart stayer was found to be bleeding from the nose on arriving at the start, although the Wantage trainer said today that nothing is physically wrong with the horse.

“He’s absolutely fine this morning, he’s out cantering,” Miss Knight said. “It just looks like he was having a nose-bleed. There’s nothing at all in his body and nothing in his lungs.

“I don’t know how we are going to prevent it from happening again because he’s obviously got a weakness in his nostrils and it’s a bit of a worry as to what we can do.

“We think it happens when he gets tense, because physically he’s absolutely fine.

“We’ll probably take him to a few racecourses and get him to relax and it looks like we’ll run him in the Hennessy.”

Chives, who was seventh to his stable companion Best Mate in the Gold Cup before being pulled up in the Grand National, is a 16-1 chance for the Newbury race on Saturday week with Ladbrokes.