Fury set for Southwell

Tidal Fury bids to book his place in the Irish Independent Arkle Challenge Trophy at Cheltenham with a big run at Southwell on Saturday.

Jonathan Jay’s bright prospect goes for his third win over fences in the Sky Bet Press Red To Bet On ATR Novices’ Chase.

The five-year-old has won in good style at Carlisle and Haydock and suffered his only defeat over the bigger obstacles when tackling a longer distance at Exeter.

“If things were to go well on Saturday his next run would be the Arkle,” said the Newmarket trainer.

“He’s in really good form. I’m just concerned about the frost in case the meeting doesn’t go ahead, that’s the big worry at the moment.”

Jay also put Tidal Fury in the two-mile handicap chase on the same card to see what rating he was given.

“He’s going for the novice chase, but we had a look at the handicap. We wanted to see what his mark was and they gave him 140. We know he gets weight for age but he would still be nearly top weight, so I don’t think they left us with much room to manoeuvre there,” he added.

“The novice chase looks a good race, but we’ll go there and we are really looking forward to it.”

Tidal Fury is a best-priced 33-1 for the Arkle on March 13.