Sire De Grugy, the winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham in March, will miss his much-anticipated meeting with Sprinter Sacre in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in early December after a scan on Wednesday following an injury scare last week revealed some heat in the eight-year-old’s hip. However Gary Moore, his trainer, remains hopeful that the horse will be able to defend the two-mile chasing championship at Cheltenham next spring.
Sire De Grugy had been due to make his seasonal debut in the Shloer Chase at Cheltenham last Sunday but was ruled out of the race a few days beforehand when he was found to be lame after a routine gallop. By Sunday evening the chaser was able to walk and trot while being ridden, but he will be able to exercise only on a horse-walker for the next few weeks following yesterday’s scan.
“There’s no tibial stress fracture and there’s no fracture of the pelvis,” Moore said on Wednesday evening, “but he did have a hot area showing up in his hip, which is strange. That’s the only significant thing that they could find, which is a mystery, but the way forward is to be back on the walker for a month and then we will rescan in a month’s time. He won’t run again this year, but hopefully he will be back in the new year, fingers crossed.”
Sire De Grugy’s victory at Cheltenham last March was one of the highlights of the meeting as it was a first success at the meeting for both Gary Moore and his son Jamie, who rode the winner. He was a 4-1 chance on Wednesday afternoon to defend his title on 11 March 2015, with Sprinter Sacre, the outstanding winner of the same race in 2013, at the head of the market on 5-2. Sprinter Sacre has not run since being pulled up at Kempton Park on 27 December when attempting to extend his unbeaten record over fences to 11 races. He was subsequently found to be suffering from an irregular heartbeat, a problem which Nicky Henderson, his trainer, now believes has been solved. Sprinter Sacre remains on course for the Tingle Creek at Sandown Park on 6 December, where he now seems sure to start as a prohibitive favourite in the absence of his biggest rival in the two-mile division.
Shaneshill, the top-rated bumper horse of the 2013‑14 jumps season, opened a significant series of seasonal debuts by horses from the Willie Mullins stable when he recorded a fluent success on his first start over hurdles at Fairyhouse on Wednesday. By Sunday evening both Faugheen, who took the Neptune Investment Management Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March, and Vautour, the Supreme Novice Hurdle winner at the same meeting, could also have had their first outings of the winter campaign, and Mullins will hope that both can match the ease of Shaneshill’s four-length victory in the hands of Ruby Walsh.
Shaneshill was the 7-2 favourite for the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham in March but could finish only second, one-and-a-half lengths behind Dermot Weld’s Silver Concorde. The pair met again in the Grade One Champion INH Flat bumper at Punchestown’s Festival meeting a few weeks later, however, with Shaneshill emerging as a two-length winner and establishing himself as the best novice hurdling prospect on either side of the Irish Sea.
The five-year-old was the 2-11 favourite for the maiden hurdle at Fairyhouse on Wednesday and while he was not foot-perfect at a couple of hurdles, Shaneshill took up the running at the second-last and quickly eased clear with Walsh motionless in his saddle.
“I’m very pleased with that,” Mullins said. “He jumped very well apart from the third-last, and given his bumper form, he was entitled to do that.
“He could go back to two miles or up in trip, and he’s certainly not restricted by trip. For his pedigree [by the King George winner King’s Theatre] he handled the [soft] ground well.”
Shaneshill is one of six Mullins-trained entries for the Grade One Royal Bond Novice Hurdle over two miles at Fairyhouse on 30 November. Most bookmakers left his price unchanged for both the two-mile Supreme Novice Hurdle and the Neptune Investment Management Novice Hurdle over two miles and five furlongs at Cheltenham in March, for which he can be backed at a top price of 12-1 and 10-1 respectively.
