Sacre sent 'back to the garage'
Nicky Henderson will give Sprinter Sacre a “full MOT” after the Seven Barrows trainer ran out of time to get him right for the Cheltenham Festival next month.
The two-mile king was dramatically pulled up at Kempton on December 27, where he was quickly diagnosed as suffering from an irregular heartbeat.
That problem righted itself, and he has since been closely monitored by equine specialist Celia Marr.
However, the eight-year-old did not show his usual brilliance in a piece of work on Saturday, and the decision has been taken to miss not only the Queen Mother Champion Chase, which he won last year, but also the rest of the season.
Henderson told BBC Radio 5 live: “He’s such a brilliant horse you can just tell (he wasn’t right).
“He was working to 90 per cent of his ability and his capacity.
“Our job is to send him back to the garage, if you like, and get him back and have a full MOT.”
Sprinter Sacre will continue to work at home during his enforced hiatus.
Henderson told At The Races: “I suppose, in a way, it’s lifted a brick off our shoulders.
“His heart is working perfectly normal, it is probably ours that hasn’t been the last few weeks.
“His heart hasn’t done anything wrong since that day at Kempton when it took 24 hours to self-right.
“He had to go to either Kempton on Friday or Newbury on Sunday as he needed a racecourse gallop and I just wouldn’t have felt comfortable taking him to a racecourse.
“Kempton was a tremendous shock to the system and there had been no clue at home there was anything wrong.
“His blood is good, his scope is clean and we can not find anything.
“I think there’s a sense of relief (that the decision has been made). It was only right to say now, it’s getting close.
“We thought it was better to say now rather than push him any further and now everybody knows where we are.
“He’ll go out second lot and have an exercise, you can’t just stop with him. We’ll keep asking questions without galloping him and at some stage he’ll go to Ceila Marr in Newmarket to be checked over and I’m sure she’ll start with his heart.”
