The long wait to see Simonsig jump a fence in public for the first time since his brilliant win in the Arkle Trophy in March 2013 will go on for a few more weeks at least after the grey was ruled out of the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown on Saturday less than 24 hours before the race. Nicky Henderson’s nine-year-old was found to be lame on his off fore leg on Friday evening and is the third big name to be ruled out of the Grade One race in less than a week.
Only seven runners will now go to post to race for a share of £150,00 in one of the season’s most prestigious two-mile events. Un De Sceaux, this year’s Arkle Trophy winner, was scratched on Wednesday after failing to convince Willie Mullins, his trainer, that he was ready to return to action and Sprinter Sacre, Henderson’s brilliant winner of the 2013 Champion Chase, failed to appear in the five-day entries.
“He was OK, Barry [Geraghty] came in and rode him and he schooled [this morning] but unfortunately he is lame tonight,” Henderson said on Friday. “I honestly don’t know why. It is so, so cruel. I’m desperately sorry for Ronnie [Bartlett, Simonsig’s owner]. He has waited over two years to get him here.
“He schooled this morning and he was fine. It’s horrible, especially given we had got a prep run into him that had gone so well.”
The Tingle Creek would have been only the fourth chase start of Simonsig’s career, following two runs in six days in December 2012 and then a two-and-a-quarter-length victory at Cheltenham three months later at odds of 8-15. He finally returned to the racecourse over hurdles at Aintree last month, when he finished one and a half lengths behind his stablemate Bobs Worth, the 2013 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner. Simonsig was also a top-class novice hurdler in 2011-12, when his wins included the Grade One Neptune Novice Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.
Following the news that Simonsig had been scratched Vibrato Valtat, from the Paul Nicholls stable, is now clear favourite for the Tingle Creek at 2-1, with Special Tiara, a Grade One winner over course and distance in April, at 7-2 and Sire De Grugy, the 2014 Champion Chase winner, next in the list at 5-1.
Gary Moore, Sire De Grugy’s trainer, is still feeling the effects of the kick from one of his horses a month ago that left him in intensive care with fractured ribs and a punctured lung. “It was four weeks yesterday,” Moore said here on Friday after completing a treble on the first day of the Tingle Creek meeting. “My ribs still hurt but it’s bearable. Laughing’s no problem. It’s sneezing that’s the problem.”
Friday’s three winners, at combined odds of 615-1, took Moore’s total to eight in the last fortnight. He might exchange them all for a Sire De Grugy victory on Saturday, however. The chestnut chaser is the best that Moore has trained but had a hit-and-miss campaign last season and finished last of five at Exeter on 3 November. If the spark is still missing on Saturday, at a track where Sire De Grugy is unbeaten in three starts over fences including two Grade Ones, it is unlikely to return.
“At home he appears to be back to his best but his homework has always been very good,” Moore said. “I just hope he can come and do it back on a racecourse. I thought he was back to his best before he ran at Exeter but he didn’t show it.
“It’s a key race tomorrow in more ways than one. We’ll know where we’re going after that. He’s the highest-rated in the race still but whether he’s worth that mark tomorrow will tell us. He’s three-out-of-three here, so hopefully he’ll give a good account.
“There’s enough in there to find out where we are. Somersby [who finished second to Sprinter Sacre at Cheltenham in November] is probably the best benchmark of all; he beat us at Cheltenham [in March] when I thought we underachieved, but we’ve beaten him around here before. If we don’t finish in front of him tomorrow, we’re probably in trouble.”
Label Des Obeaux, from the Alan King stable, took the feature race on the card, the Grade Two Neptune Investment Management Novice Hurdle, and will now run in either the Grade One Challow Hurdle over Christmas or a Grade Two novice event at Cheltenham in late January.
“It was only 13 days since [his last run at] Ascot but the race has been fairly lucky for me in the past and we thought we’d take our chance,” King said.
“I’ve only had him since the summer and I must admit that a couple of months ago, I thought he was worse than useless. He wasn’t really showing me much, and then suddenly he started to work much better and I thought he’d run very well at Ascot, and he did.
“He loves soft ground and that would be the key to him, if it dried up in the spring, we’d probably have to go steady with him as he does seem to handle this ground very well.”
There was late drama in the card’s handicap chase for amateur riders as Tom David, riding Silvergrove for Ben Pauling, lost his balance and slipped from the saddle on the run to the line with the race at his mercy. His misfortune allowed Katie Walsh, on the 7-4 favourite Conas Taoi, to secure an unlikely success.
“There’s a piece of webbing on the saddle that holds the stirrups together and that has come loose,” Pauling said. “The stirrups were like a see-saw every time he tried to correct himself. He felt it go at the Pond fence [three out] and he probably would have gone earlier but for the horse being such a good jumper.
“It’s devastating, as the horse couldn’t have jumped any better. But Tom’s fine and the horse is fine.”
