Vista digs deepto remain Arkle-bound

Arkle Trophy hopeful Buena Vista proved the star turn at Hereford but had to fight hard to maintain his unbeaten record over fences.

The David Pipe-trained six-year-old was sent off the well supported 8-15 favourite for the two-mile Hereford Truck Show Novices’ Chase and all went according to plan in the early stages.

Tony McCoy settled his mount just off the early pace applied by Genghis before asking his partner to move into a challenging position as the tempo quickened.

Buena Vista, third in last year’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, jumped to the front at the third-last fence, although McCoy was soon noticeably lower in the saddle than Sam Thomas, who was sitting motionless on Chief Yeoman in his slipstream.

The latter made a slight mistake at the penultimate obstacle, however, and then appeared to stumble at a critical point as the duelling pair neared the final fence.

Buena Vista jumped it well and then responded to a characteristic McCoy drive to hold off the rallying 2-1 chance by the narrowest of margins.

Pipe said: “Conditions were probably not ideal out there for anyone.

“When you are odds-on in a race like that you haven’t really got much to gain but experience and that’s what we’ve come here for.

“AP (McCoy) said he reached for one early, but he was very good after that and it was a completely different track to what it was at Exeter last time.

“I suppose we’re heading down the Arkle route, but we’ll wait and see how he comes out of this before deciding whether he has another run before Cheltenham,” he told At The Races.

Pipe had earlier hit the target with Joaaci, who followed up a recent course and distance win in the Lindley Catering Novices’ Hurdle.

Stamina unsurprisingly came to the fore in the testing conditions but the 2-9 favourite was always travelling strongly and Timmy Murphy only had to nudge his partner home to see off 33-1 chance Elbow Lane by a long-looking six lengths.

“He’s had a canter round and done it how he should have done it,” Pipe said.

“He lost his confidence a bit over fences and as he’s still a novice hurdler we thought we’d go down that route. He’s won twice here now under these conditions and these have been two nice confidence boosters. We’ll see what happens now but I’ll talk to Timmy and to David Johnson and he’ll probably have both options (hurdling and chasing) coming to the bigger meetings.”