Monday 19 March 2018 17:46, UK
Cliffs Of Dover set up a possible crack at the Scottish Champion Hurdle when winning his second race on the Flat this month at Lingfield.
Trained by Paul Nicholls, the five-year-old rattled up a sequence in juvenile hurdles two seasons ago, but injury meant he missed the whole of the last campaign.
He returned in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton, but found the ground too soft, and was back to winning ways earlier this month when give a good ride by the trainer's daughter, Megan.
The pair teamed up again in the Betway Stayers Handicap and while the 1-2 favourite had a fair bit of ground to make up having been trapped wide on the bend as Age Of Wisdom clung to the rail, he was ultimately a smooth winner.
"He just keeps progressing," said Nicholls of his three-quarters of a length scorer.
"We're desperate to run him over hurdles again, but he must have better ground.
"We just thought with the ground still as it is we'd run him in another Flat race to keep his fitness up.
"Once the ground comes good he'll probably have an entry in the Scottish Champion Hurdle, races like that.
"He was obviously well handicapped last time and this race was ideal to enable him to keep progressing."
He added: "There's nothing really for him at Aintree as the only one I can see is over two and a half miles for conditional jockeys on the last day and I'm not sure he wants to be going that far yet.
"He might get an entry, but there's Ayr and the Swinton Hurdle, too. The most important thing is good ground."
William Cox was in double form, with a cosy win on Saeed bin Suroor's progressive filly Beautiful Memory the highlight.
Sent off the 4-6 favourite she was on a hat-trick having won twice at Chelmsford, but had to quicken up smartly to run down Sportswriter.
Cox had earlier won on John Flint's Air Or York (10-1), who scooted up in the first division of the seven-furlong handicap.
The second division was won by Stevie Donohoe on Critical Thinking (9-4 favourite) for David Loughnane.
