Gary Moore is keen to run Sire De Grugy again this spring, having identified a range of factors that may have contributed to his beaten effort at last week’s Cheltenham Festival. The popular chestnut was sent off as the 5-2 second-favourite for the Queen Mother Champion Chase but never quite got into the argument and finished fourth, beaten 10 lengths.
“He’s absolutely fine,” Moore said from his Horsham base on Tuesday. “He’ll definitely run again. It was a combination of factors that meant he didn’t run to his best. The ground was quick enough for him, that’s one thing. And I might have done the wrong thing by running him at Chepstow so close to the race. He looked good and everything but that might have taken too much out of him, so I blame myself for that.”
Moore had, at the time, felt the Chepstow run was necessary because Sire De Grugy had had such an unfortunate experience in Newbury’s Game Spirit, which was supposed to be his final prep run. The horse already appeared under pressure at Newbury when unseating Jamie Moore at the third-last after consecutive blunders.
Turned out a fortnight later at Chepstow, Sire De Grugy beat three rivals under top weight in a handicap, jumping much better. It was only 18 days before the Festival race but the horse has form for coping well when turned out again quickly.
At Chepstow, Sire De Grugy was fitted with new plastic shoes to help alleviate the symptoms of a corn for which he had recently been treated. In the end, Moore decided against using the plastic shoes at Cheltenham, fearing they could make the horse slip on the expected dry surface. One consequence of using normal racing plates is that Moore now wonders whether the horse may have been feeling that corn during the Festival race, though he clarifies that by saying the horse “never took a lame step” in his preparation or since.
As a final consideration, Moore suggested “we might have ridden him too far back” and indeed Sire De Grugy performed best of the horses who were held up in the Champion Chase, the three who finished in front of him having been to the fore throughout. As it turned out, prominent racers did well all week in the Festival’s Grade Ones.
But Jamie Moore, the trainer’s son, who has ridden the horse in nearly all his races, said: “I couldn’t go any quicker at any stage. I tried to get a ‘posi’ behind Dodging Bullets going past the stands but I didn’t have the horse to do it.
“He felt great, before and since. Maybe he’s just lost a gear or maybe he just needs that softer ground over two miles.”
Both men are interested in trying Sire De Grugy over an extra half-mile in the Melling Chase at Aintree’s Grand National meeting. But they are also mindful of the need to find the right race to end the horse’s season and there are other options at Sandown and Punchestown next month, where he could be more likely to get the soft ground that suits him.
The season is over for both Tea For Two and Aubusson, the two horses who represented the Devon trainer Jane Williams at last week’s Festival. Tea For Two was pulled up in the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle, while Aubusson was well beaten in the World Hurdle, both having won valuable handicaps during the winter.
“I think you can just put a line through those runs,” Williams said. “There’s a bit of a cold going around just now and our horses are just not firing. We had our luck earlier in the season.”
Both horses have had their shoes taken off and were now out in a field, the trainer added. Aubusson will be a novice chaser in the autumn, while Tea For Two may have another year over hurdles. Williams said she a decision was awaited about whether there might be another race this spring for Reve De Sivola, trained by her husband, Nick, and well beaten in the World Hurdle.
