Celestial returns to hurdling ranks

Paul Nicholls called time on Celestial Halo’s novice chasing adventure after the top-class hurdler again proved a disappointment over fences at Newbury.

Nicholls maintains the 2009 Champion Hurdle runner-up jumps soundly home and wrote off his fall at Exeter last month as a minor aberration, but the Fuller’s London Pride Novices’ Chase revealed more glaring concerns.