Coneygree, last season’s Gold Cup winner, schooled well at Mark Bradstock’s stable on Tuesday morning and remains on course for a possible run in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day.
“The schooling session went very well, really good,” Bradstock said on Tuesday. “He’s got to do some work. We don’t have to make a decision [on whether to supplement Coneygree for the race at a cost of £10,000] until Monday. I’m not going to rush it.
“He’ll work probably tomorrow or Thursday and we’ll see how he comes out of that with evening stables and things. That’s important. If we are able to make a decision before Monday, we will, if not, we won’t.”
More Of That, who has had just two starts over fences to date, will be given an entry in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March, Jonjo O’Neill, the seven-year-old’s trainer, said on Tuesday.
More Of That won the World Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2014 but missed most of the 2014-15 campaign due to injury before returning to the track as a novice chaser this season. He has already won twice at Cheltenham at around two-and-a-half miles, and is a leading ante-post contender for the RSA Novice Chase on the second day of next year’s Festival meeting.
Coneygree was the first novice to win the Gold Cup for 41 years last season, however, and O’Neill will keep his options open ahead of National Hunt’s showpiece event.
“[The Gold Cup] is a long way off and it’s a pretty good Gold Cup this year, but to me it would be silly not to make an entry in it,” O’Neill said. “I think he could do with another run as he had a fairly solo run round [last Saturday]. It would be good to get another race into him for the experience.”
More Of That is top-priced at 33-1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and is the 6-1 second-favourite with several bookmakers for the RSA Chase.
