Sizing Europe team favour clonmel

Henry de Bromhead is leaning towards running Sizing Europe in the Clonmel Oil Chase on November 15 after soft ground scuppered his intention to run over three miles at Down Royal yesterday.

Second in the previous two runnings of the JNwine.com Champion Chase, De Bromhead was eager to see his charge run over three miles on good ground but overnight rain turned the conditions soft.

Now his options rest between the Fortria Chase at Navan next week, won for the last two years by Colm Murphy’s Big Zeb, or the Clonmel Oil Chase the following Thursday.

“We just thought after last year that we’d love to see him over three miles on good ground but it wasn’t that yesterday,” said De Bromhead.

“We said we’d take him out if it went soft so we thought we’d leave it.

“He’ll be entered for the Fortria on Sunday and we’ll also enter him for the Clonmel Oil Chase the following Thursday, so he’ll run in one or the other.

“The ground is more important going out towards three miles, over two and two and a half it doesn’t matter so much.

“I would say we are leaning more towards Clonmel but I wouldn’t like to say for sure.”