Murphy targets Cheltenham raid

Ferdy Murphy will send De Boitron and Riguez Dancer on the long journey down from North Yorkshire to Cheltenham for Wednesday and Thursday’s meetings.

De Boitron, fourth in the Grand Annual at the Festival, takes his chance in the Masterson Holdings Silver Trophy Chase tomorrow, while Riguez Dancer will aim to win the Auriga Network Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Chase which De Boitron won 12 months ago.

“We’ll have two runners at Cheltenham this week – De Boitron goes on Wednesday and we will run Riguez Dancer on Thursday,” said Murphy.

“De Boitron would have a good chance. He ran fourth in the Grand Annual at the Festival but he won over two and a half miles at Stratford last year and we think he will get the trip all right.

“De Boitron won the conditional jockeys’ handicap last year and we will have Riguez Dancer in that race on Thursday.

“He (Riguez Dancer) was very unlucky in the Grand Annual last time, he got brought to a standstill at the fence at the top of the hill and then absolutely flew up the hill. If he hadn’t have got interfered with, he would have probably been placed. He’s a right decent little horse.

“We’re looking forward to running both – I spoke to Simon Claisse at Cheltenham and he said they had put some water on. Everywhere could do with a little drop of rain at the moment.”