Many Clouds will not, after all, be obliged to have his Grand National prep-run in the white heat of a Cheltenham Gold Cup next week, following the news that Kelso will be allowed to reschedule an abandoned raceday for this Sunday. The horse had been due to line up at the Borders course last Saturday until 16mm of overnight rain waterlogged it.
Oliver Sherwood, trainer of Many Clouds, expressed delight at the news that Kelso would be an option once more, even if it does mean a second lengthy road journey for his charge.
“We were hoping it would happen. We’ve been working on it for a day,” he said. “The British Horseracing Authority have been first class and so have Kelso. It’s happy days, so we will be heading up there again on Sunday.
“It’s not ideal to go up there again, but I’m very happy with the horse. He’s come back fine and will head up there again. He definitely runs unless something happens to the horse between now and then.”
Many Clouds ran in last year’s Gold Cup on his way to Grand National glory but on that occasion there was a four-week gap between the two races. This time, there will be three weeks and a day, meaning the Cheltenham race could only be a prep of last resort in Sherwood’s view.
If Kelso proves able to race on Sunday, that will give Many Clouds a somewhat less taxing experience than the Gold Cup, plus an extra week to recover.
Kelso’s clerk of the course said the track was heavy in places but raceable and likely to remain so in view of a “pretty good” weather forecast for the week. Many Clouds is a general 12-1 shot to become the first dual Grand National winner since Red Rum in the 70s.
It was presumably a busy day at the offices of the British Horseracing Authority, which also heard the last of three days’ evidence in the disciplinary hearing involving Jim Best and Paul John. Best, a trainer, and John, a jockey, are accused of non-trier offences in relation to races in December. John claims that Best instructed him to stop two horses. Best says this is an invention on the conditional rider’s part.
While all remaining witnesses were heard on Monday, closing arguments were not completed and will now be held over until Friday. This at least has the effect of making it unlikely that a verdict can be reached this week, which some BHA insiders had feared could swamp advance coverage of next week’s Cheltenham Festival.
Meanwhile, there are signs that Cheltenham is on the way to a deal that will ensure two empty betting shops on its site will be operational in time for the Festival. Until last month, it was expected that Ladbrokes would run the shops but that firm withdrew suddenly on losing its sponsorship of next week’s World Hurdle.
There had been fears of chaos and ill feeling due to a shortage of betting facilities if the two shops remained unstaffed but course officials now hope to announce this week that they will in fact be open for business with a new firm trading on the premises.
