Charlie Hall option for Irish Cavalier
Monday 17 October 2016 12:13, UK
Rebecca Curtis could step Irish Cavalier back up in trip and class for the bet365 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby on Saturday week.
The Newport handler feels the Grade Two contest at the West Yorkshire track is the ideal race to conclusively discover if the seven-year-old, who contested both the King George and Gold Cup last season, can see out three miles.
Irish Cavalier, a Cheltenham Festival winner in 2015, returned to action at Chepstow on October 9 but could only finish down the field in an extended two-mile-three-furlong handicap chase.
Curtis said: "I don't think he needed it (the run at Chepstow). He was just flat-out the whole way, and when he is flat-out it just puts his jumping under pressure.
"He's a hard horse to place now. I think it's hard in handicaps for him off that top weight and he is just off the verge of being a Grade One horse.
"I'd like to try him in the Charlie Hall as he will probably have his ground and it will be an easy three miles there.
"If he can't be competitive in that, then we may as well forget three-mile Graded races for him.
"At home, he's a big galloper and he is not the quickest so I would like to think he would get three miles now he is that bit older.
"Also, last year so many of my horses were wrong so I don't know if that affected him."
