Mark Bradstock, the trainer of the Gold Cup winner Coneygree, gave a clear hint on Monday that his chaser will join the lineup for what promises to be an outstanding renewal of the William Hill King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day, provided he pleases the trainer in a schooling session at his Lambourn stable on Tuesday.
Coneygree’s owners will need to pay £10,000 to get their horse back into the field for the King George after Bradstock suffered a “computer glitch” while trying to confirm his original entry last month. It seems likely the money will be found, however, so long as Coneygree jumps with his usual enthusiasm when he is put to the test at Bradstock’s yard.
The management at Leopardstown racecourse, which will stage the Lexus Chase on 28 December, has also been courting Coneygree, who missed the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury late last month after suffering a minor foot injury. “They even offered to build a stable for him,” said Sara Bradstock, the trainer’s wife and assistant, but the much shorter trip from Lambourn to Sunbury still makes more sense.
“You can’t get away from it,” Mark Bradstock said, at a lunch to launch the buildup to the King George. “To go for the Lexus, we would probably have to leave on Boxing Day. That’s fine but we would definitely prefer to stay in England.
“There are still some other things we’ve got to get over, he’s going to school tomorrow, for example. But if he’s well, and he certainly seems in that mould, we’ll give it a go. The horses are there to do a job, and the job is not looking pretty on the gallops, it’s to see them on the racecourse.
“ It does depend a lot on how he jumps on Tuesday, because we did discover before the Hennessy that his jumping was great, but not like he normally is. This week is very important in his training schedule, and we’ll see how it goes. We don’t have to make that decision [to supplement] until a week today.”
If Coneygree is added to the King George field, he could face two top-class contenders from Ireland in Don Cossack and Vautour, as well as the rejuvenated nine-year-old Cue Card, who beat Silviniaco Conti, the winner of the King George for the past two years, in last month’s Betfair Chase. Silviniaco Conti remains a live contender for a King George hat-trick while Smad Place, who produced a spectacular round of jumping to win the Hennessy Gold Cup, is also a possible runner.
Don Cossack, who is trained by Gordon Elliott, and Vautour, from the yard of Ireland’s champion trainer Willie Mullins, are currently vying for favouritism in the ante-post betting at 11‑4 and 100‑30 respectively, while Coneygree is top-priced at 7-1 all-in, and 3-1 with a run. Cue Card is a 9-2 chance, with Silviniaco Conti available at 8-1.
Vautour was the clear favourite for the race prior to his seasonal debut at Ascot in November, when he beat Ptit Zig by a length-and-three-quarters after jumping left at several fences on his first right-handed start in a chase.
Kempton is also a right-handed track, but Joe Chambers, the racing manager for Vautour’s owner Rich Ricci, said that he does not feel it will be an issue for the six-year-old.
“We were happy to get a run into him,” Chambers said, “because half of the meetings in Ireland were abandoned. He was pretty big in the ring, and a little bit lazy mid-race, but he was kind of going away again at the end. I don’t think you don’t go from jumping brilliantly around Cheltenham [when winning the JLT Novice Chase in March] to being a poor jumper at Ascot in the space of six months.”
“He’s run right-handed three times. The first time he won the [Grade Two] Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle, and the second was at Punchestown, and he won that day as well. His strengths are his jumping and his stride, and we’ll ride him to suit him and not worry about the others.”
Silviniaco Conti is almost the forgotten horse of the King George, despite having won the race two years running. He was soundly beaten behind Cue Card at Haydock last time out but while Paul Nicholls, his trainer, is no more than hopeful of a third success, he sees reasons to expect improvement on the Haydock form.
“He wasn’t quite 100% [at Haydock],” Nicholls said, “but even if he was, he still wouldn’t have beaten Cue Card. He ran to a fair level, but I still think there’s improvement to come from him, we have to try and find that somewhere.
“I think it’s his toughest task to date. There’s so many good, young horses, and no-one’s mentioned [the former Nicholls-trained chaser] Al Ferof yet. Like Cue Card, he had a trapped epiglottis last spring which we had fixed and that’s been a huge improvement for him, and Dan [Skelton, Al Ferof’s new trainer and a former assistant to Nicholls] has obviously got him right. He’s in the mix as well.”
Sire De Grugy has finally been confirmed as the winner of the Grade One Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown this month after the connections of Special Tiara, who was beaten three-quarters of a length into second place, decided not to appeal against the stewards’ decision to let the result stand.
Sire De Grugy jumped to his left at the final fence, impeding Special Tiara as he did so.
Special Tiara appeared to be staging a rally at the time after losing the lead to Sire De Grugy approaching the home turn but was not making any further ground as the two horses crossed the line.
“We’re not going to appeal,” Henry de Bromhead, Special Tiara’s trainer, said. “The advice we got was that we didn’t have a good enough chance to get the result. It’s disappointing because most people believe the best horse on the day was taken out of the race and didn’t get it.”
