Chance happy with City

River City delighted connections as he continued his Cheltenham Festival preparations with an encouraging third place on his Flat debut at Wolverhampton.

The Noel Chance-trained nine-year-old is being aimed at the Queen Mother Champion Chase, but had not raced for 300 days prior to lining up for the first division of the First Past The Post At Betdirect Maiden Stakes.

And despite his lack of a recent outing, River City emerged with great credit.

He was outpaced in the early stages of the 12-furlong contest but eventually got into gear under Vince Slattery and stayed on well in the closing stages to take the minor berth, seven lengths behind the front-running winner Marmota.

“He looked like being swamped and then ran on nicely,” Chance said afterwards. “I couldn’t be happier and he hasn’t lost his form, he’s just shown that.

“He’s having a serious blow and if there was another of these races in about a week he’d run in it and that would leave him spot on.

“He’ll now go to Lingfield for a racecourse gallop, maybe next Saturday.

“Tom Doyle will be on board at Cheltenham.”

Explaining the horse’s absence from the track the Lambourn handler continued: “He’s essentially a good-ground horse and he likes the sun on his back.

“We missed the first part of the season – we missed the ground.

“He’s had a few niggling problems that we weren’t able to get on top of but he’s back now hopefully for a good summer campaign.

“He will come back to Flat racing after he’s been jumping for a maiden or something like that.

“This is a great surface, it’s kind to them and he’s still a maiden.”

Paddy Power left the gelding unchanged at 50-1 for the two-mile championship later this month.