Alan King's Cheltenham Festival winner Bensalem will miss the entire National Hunt season due to a leg problem.
Cheltenham Hero young enough to come back 'as good as new'
Alan King's Cheltenham Festival winner Bensalem will miss the entire National Hunt season due to a leg problem.
The eight-year-old provided his trainer with a welcome winner at Prestbury Park in March before finishing fifth at Aintree the following month.
"Bensalem came back with a leg after running a bit disappointingly at Aintree in April, and we have decided to write him off until 2012," the Barbury Castle handler told
www.alankingracing.co.uk.
"The ground was a bit quick at Aintree, and he never jumped with the same fluency that he had done when winning the Stewart Family Spinal Research Handicap Chase at Cheltenham, so I suspected all might not have been right then.
Young Enough
"It is a great shame, but Bensalem is young enough to come back as good as new.
"He will only be nine when he returns, but the best treatment for such an injury is rest and he has gone home to his owner's place in Ireland to recuperate.
"Getting us back on the score-sheet at Cheltenham in March meant an awful lot to everyone at Barbury, and Bensalem is such a brave and courageous horse and such a super jumper that I am hopeful there will be plenty more good days in front of him."
