Sam Twiston-Davies expects to learn on Thursday whether he will be allowed to take part in Cheltenham’s Open meeting, starting on Friday. The jockey, who suffered a grade four laceration of his spleen in a fall at Chepstow last month, accepts he will not be able to ride in every race this weekend, as he would hope to do in normal circumstances, but he would content himself with being part of the action during the days that kickstart jump racing’s core season.
“I’ve been in the gym every day, I was back riding out last week, the body feels great and is coping,” Twiston-Davies said on Monday. “It doesn’t feel as though there’s anything wrong with me.”
The 24-year-old is to appear before the BHA’s chief medical adviser, Dr Jerry Hill, on Wednesday to present him with medical reports, detailing his recovery. If necessary, another CT scan may be taken of Twiston-Davies’ spleen and kidneys to assist Hill in his decision, though the jockey has been told his organs “won’t look normal for months, despite having healed”.
“The plan is to make a strong case. I feel healthy but proving that is hard, especially when it’s not about a bone break or something that you can see. I was initially told it might take six weeks to get back. By this Sunday it’ll be five weeks. I just want to come back, it’s been driving me mad. I’m not expecting to ride everything right away. You can’t just jump straight back into a job like that.”
Twiston-Davies has missed an especially fruitful period for his main employer, Paul Nicholls, who had 29 winners in October and has averaged one per day through November. Among the many Nicholls-trained horses entered for Cheltenham is Frodon, the 5-1 favourite for Saturday’s BetVictor Gold Cup.
The going at Cheltenham is good, the course having had only an inch of rain since the end of August, but almost as much is forecast for the next five days, according to Simon Claisse, the clerk of the course. He added that the chance of running Friday’s cross-country race is “very slim” and would require something like 70mm of rain.
One of many trainers hoping the weather will prove at least as wet as is forecast is Jonjo O’Neill, whose More Of That is the 8-1 second-favourite for the BetVictor. O’Neill said this is the best horse he has trained but acknowledged he will be on tenterhooks when More Of That next runs, waiting to learn whether a second wind operation will allow him to express that ability.
“I think I’ve improved him a stone and a half,” O’Neill joked at a media event here. “No, he’s in great shape. I’m delighted with him at home.”
More Of That has had a tie-back operation, under which cartilage is sutured to one side to prevent it from interfering with the flow of wind. O’Neill said: “You can’t tie it back too tight because, if you do … We did that with another horse, Merry King, and what they tied it back to snapped. He never ran again after that.” The trainer added that Merry King is now in use as a hack in retirement.
O’Neill said More Of That’s initial tie-back, applied last year, had “slipped a little bit. So maybe they tied it a little bit too loose. So they’ve done it again; I’ve never heard of this before. Hopefully it’ll work. If it works, we’re in business.”
A recurrence of his wind problem was suspected after More Of That was a disappointing third in the RSA Chase at the Festival in March, his first defeat over fences. He is a general 33-1 shot for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
