There were mixed reports on Monday about the last two winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup and their prospects of returning to the Festival in just over two months’ time; the news that Coneygree will definitely miss the Gold Cup on 17 March was followed by a more positive update on Don Cossack, who may yet attempt to follow up his victory in the race last season.
Coneygree was ruled out of the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day a few days before the race and will not even be entered for the Festival’s feature event because Mark Bradstock, his trainer, sees no prospect the 10-year-old will be fit and ready to do himself justice after his latest setback. Coneygree has now made only two starts in 22 months since winning the Gold Cup as a novice in 2015, but could yet line up at either the Aintree Festival in early April or at Punchestown in Ireland later in the month.
“I’m afraid it’s not going to happen, which is a real shame,” Sara Bradstock, the trainer’s wife and assistant, said. “When you have a horse like this you must not take any risks and there is no point going there half-baked.
“He has just niggled the bone, where the cannon bone meets the knee. He is still walking at the moment, but we must not take a risk as these niggling things can turn into fractures.
“He will do plenty of swimming and other stuff. Hopefully he will go to Punchestown and win the Irish equivalent.”
Bradstock also confirmed the French Champion Hurdle, due to be run at Auteuil in Paris in June, is a possible target.
“We might just give him a change of scenery and run him in the French Champion Hurdle, which is over three miles and is usually run on soft ground,” she said. “He might possibly make Aintree, but only time will tell.
“I think we ran him on ground we had not trained him on at Haydock [in November], as it had only rained those two days there and there had been no soft ground to train him on. He ran a great race at Haydock, but he might have been feeling this coming on.
“He has no miles on the clock and I’m hoping he can become a veteran record-breaker and a novice record-breaker. He is in very good nick mentally and is full of himself.”
Don Cossack, however, remains a possible runner at Cheltenham in March, despite having been sidelined by injury since his Gold Cup victory 10 months ago. The 10-year-old has returned to full training with Gordon Elliott and could make his seasonal debut in the Red Mills Chase at Gowran Park on 18 February.
“It’s so far, so good,” Eddie O’Leary, racing manager to Michael O’Leary, his brother and Don Cossack’s owner, said on Monday. “At the moment, we’re hoping to run in February, but we’ll see. There’s the Red Mills but at the moment we’re just trying to get him back to the racecourse.”
Uncertainty about Coneygree’s participation at Cheltenham had already been factored in to his ante-post price for the Gold Cup and confirmation that he will miss the Festival led to few changes in the Festival betting.
Thistlecrack, an exceptional winner of the King George at Kempton last month, is top-priced at even money to emulate Coneygree and win the race in his novice season. His stable companion Native River, the Welsh Grand National winner under top weight last time out, is a 13-2 chance and the only other contender priced up in single figures.
Don Cossack is a general 12-1 shot. Djakadam, the runner-up behind both Coneygree and Don Cossack in the last two seasons, is 14-1 and it is 16-1 bar.
