Dancer to miss Cheltenham

Exotic Dancer will return to Leopardstown next month as he bids to repeat his Grade One victory in the Lexus Chase over Christmas.

The Jonjo O'Neill-trained gelding will bypass Saturday's Letheby & Christopher Chase at Cheltenham in favour of a return to Ireland for the Hennessy Gold Cup on February 8.

"We've decided we will not run Exotic Dancer at Cheltenham on Saturday. We will stick to our original plan of going to the Irish Hennessy," Barry Simpson, racing manager to owner Sir Robert Ogden, said on Wednesday.

"I've said all along providing the ground is decent Star De Mohaison will represent us at Cheltenham, but we did want to cover the situation.

"I've chatted with Jonjo this morning. If he's going to run on Saturday he has to do a piece of work tomorrow. We don't want to do that if we don't have to. The plan is to carry on and go for the Irish Hennessy."

However, one horse definitely on course for Cheltenham is the Colin Tizzard-trained Joe Lively.

The three-time course winner will have his first outing since finishing sixth in the Welsh National when he suffered an interrupted preparation.

"He's far sharper than he was at Chepstow," said the trainer. "We knew he had a bit of a setback after he won at Cheltenham as that cut leg put him back a few weeks.

"He ran well in the Welsh National, but he's in a lot better form now. "We could do with 2mm of rain before the race as that would suit him down to the ground.

"We thought that he used to like running on good ground but as he's got older, it has gone the other way. The classier and speedier horses might not like a real slog and that's when our horse will come into his own."