Murphy considers Misselot options

Coral Cup winner Naiad Du Misselot will this weekend attempt to break his duck over fences at Cheltenham or Doncaster.

Ferdy Murphy’s seven-year-old has this season finished second in two novice chases but was put in his place by the Nicky Richards-trained Palomar at Kelso last time out.

“People might say it’s been a bit disappointing that he hasn’t won over fences yet but I don’t see it like that,” said Murphy.

“The aim for any novice chaser is to get them to do the job right and longevity is the name of the game with the novice chasers as far as we are concerned.

“They have to learn to jump right first and then we place them accordingly.

“The programme book is not exactly in his favour as we couldn’t find a two-and-a-half-mile race for him so we dropped him back over two at Kelso last time.

“He won’t go back over hurdles at the moment. Chasing was always the plan this year. The pinnacle he was ever going to achieve over hurdles was the Coral Cup.

“He’s not overly big, so something like the Jewson at the Festival might be ideal for him.

“He’s the ideal type of horse that the following November you’d be looking at the Paddy Power – he’s a horse for those type of races.”