Sire De Grugy, who makes his long-awaited reappearance on Saturday in the Betfair Price Rush Chase at Newbury, is “fit enough to do himself justice”, reported the trainer Gary Moore on Tuesday.
Last season’s Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, who has been out of action so far this term with a hip injury, is set to make his return in this weekend’s Grade Two event, better known as the Game Spirit, before returning to the Cheltenham Festival in March.
Writing on his Betway blog, Moore said: “Sire De Grugy did his final piece of serious work this morning ahead of Saturday’s Game Spirit and I’m delighted with what I saw. He’s ready for Newbury now but, don’t get me wrong, he’ll come on for the run and there’s still a little bit left to work on. But he’s fit enough to do himself justice. Jamie [Moore] rode him this morning and he was really pleased.
“We covered bits of the gallops overnight and after a power harrowing, the gallop was riding quite deep. Sire De Grugy will do nothing between now and the race. I’m not worried about a small field as long as there’s some pace.”
Sire De Grugy’s potential opponents, after the race was reoffered and entries were released on Tuesday, include the Alan King-trained Uxizandre, the Paul Nicholls duo of Mr Mole and Vibrato Valtat, Pauline Robson’s Upsilon Bleu and Karinga Dancer from Harry Fry’s yard.
Dan Skelton, whose Fascino Rustico became prominent in the betting for the Betfair Hurdle on the same card at Newbury when winning in style at Newcastle last week, has a slight doubt Saturday’s test may come too soon but is keen to see how his runner gets on in Berkshire.
“We’re very much looking forward to it,” Skelton told At The Races. “We ran him at Newcastle because we thought we might need a penalty to get in and while he might have got in without it, it certainly takes the pressure off.
“The clear round will have done him the world of good and he jumped better so mentally he’ll be going there in good form, he couldn’t be better. He breezed this morning and he’ll have no excuses.
“The race coming just 10 days after Newcastle isn’t ideal, but we can’t have it any other way now so we have to get on with it. Races like this tend to be won by the up-and-comings and the obvious ones are Calipto and Activial, but there’s plenty of others like Snake Eyes, if he gets in, and Seedling – you’d think plenty of winners will come out of it.
“We’ve entered him in the Supreme and he’ll get an entry in the County Hurdle, but I have a feeling Cheltenham might not be his track and that he could be better on flatter ones like Aintree and Ayr. We’ll just get Saturday out of the way though. It’s worth so much money that ever since he won at Bangor, this has been his aim.”
Fascino Rustico is generally a 12-1 shot, with Calipto at the head of the betting at a best-priced 5-1 and Activial around the 7-1 mark with most firms. The course has been under cover since last Thursday and the going is described as soft.
There is no jumps racing set to take place in Britain until at least Thursday, but Newbury clerk of the course Richard Osgood reported no problems at Newbury on Tuesday: “There was three centimetres of snow overnight,” he said, “but temperatures have risen today and the snow has already thawed out on the parts of the course which are not covered. With the snow melting, we are now soft all over. With the current forecast predicting daytime temperatures well above freezing for the remainder of the week, we remain extremely hopeful of racing going ahead.”
There are also no weather worries at present for Leopardstown’s “mouthwatering” card on Sunday.
“We’re in a very good position, the ground is yielding, soft in places,” said Leopardstown’s Nessa Joyce. “We’ve not had a huge amount of rain since our last meeting. It has been very cold this week, but temperatures are set to rise as we head towards the weekend. At the moment we’ve got green grass and blue skies. I’m not sure the ground will dry up much as it is very cold at the moment.
“As it stands, we have no worries about the weather at all and are just really looking forward to it. It’s a mouthwatering card.”
The Gold Cup hero Lord Windermere is on course to have his final outing before the defence of his Cheltenham crown in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown, where he will face eight possible rivals.
The Jim Culloty-trained runner will be attempting a third successive win at the Festival having also been successful in the 2013 RSA Chase. He made a pleasing return to action in the two-and-a-half-mile John Durkan but he was only seventh in the Lexus Chase at Christmas and his jockey Davy Russell hopes that was just a blip.
“I went back to the old tactics and dropped him right in and he still ran a reasonably good race the last day, he was beaten the same distance as he was last year,” said Russell on Leopardstown’s twitter feed. “We weren’t that happy to be honest, though, especially after his good first run at Punchestown when we were over the moon with him.
“We thought he’d improved for that so hopefully he can take a step forward again at Leopardstown.”
