Coneygree, the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, will miss the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury on Saturday after failing to please his trainer Mark Bradstock during a schooling session at his stable on Tuesday morning. Coneygree’s attempt to defy top weight in one of the season’s most competitive handicap chases had promised to be one of the highlights of the National Hunt season, but he will now be aimed instead at either the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day or the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown on 28 December.
The Hennessy was nominated as a target for Coneygree several months ago, but his participation had been in doubt since he lost a shoe and bruised a foot on 16 November. He was successfully fitted with a new shoe a few days later, however, and had seemed sure to start favourite for Saturday’s big race before the latest unfortunate twist in the story of his season so far.
“I’m afraid we’re not running,” Sara Bradstock, the trainer’s wife and assistant, said on Tuesday morning. “He just didn’t school well enough. He over-reached, which he’s never done before, which suggests he’s not comfortable.
“He didn’t jump badly but for him, it wasn’t him. We’ve always said if there was any residual pain left, we weren’t going to take a risk [and] he definitely wasn’t himself.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we haven’t flared it, and he wasn’t lame on it again tonight. It’s just his foot, it’s not structural damage.”
The King George VI Chase is the obvious domestic target for Coneygree in the weeks ahead, though the choice of his next assignment is complicated by the fact that Bradstock failed to enter the Gold Cup winner for the Grade One feature of the Christmas programme as a result of a “computer glitch”.
Coneygree can be added to the field via a supplementary entry of £10,000 a few days before the race, but the extra expense could make the Grade One Lexus Chase at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting a more attractive alternative.
“Obviously, the prime thing is to get him feeling absolutely on top of the world and not worrying about his foot,” Bradstock said. “We’ve got a month to either the King George or the Lexus. I think all will be well. It’s a timing thing.”
In Coneygree’s absence, the weights for the Hennessy are due to rise by 9lb, with Saphir Du Rheu the new top weight on 11st 12lb. The rise will also bring all the remaining 20 entries for the Hennessy into the handicap proper, with the bottom weight Theatre Guide now set to carry 10st 2lb.
“The weights have gone up 9lb and a six-year-old I quite like is now going to lug around top weight,” Andy Stewart, the owner of Saphir Du Rheu, said on Tuesday. “I think the weights now benefit two horses enormously, the Alan King horse [Smad Place] and former Gold Cup winner Bobs Worth. Both horses won very well last time.”
Willie Mullins, Ireland’s champion trainer, is responsible for four of the eight entries for the Grade One Royal Bond Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse on Sunday, including Bachasson and Long Dog, both Grade Three race winners already this season.
Gordon Elliott’s No More Heroes, a leading contender for the RSA Chase at Cheltenham in March, is among the entries for the Grade One Drinmore Novice Chase on the same card.
