Sprinter Sacre and Bobs Worth are both likely to race on next season, their trainer, Nicky Henderson, indicated after racing here on Saturday.
While neither of the ageing warriors came close to the level of form they showed at their peaks of two years ago, the trainer feels that both can do better next winter.
Indeed there was a fair measure of encouragement from the effort of Sprinter Sacre, who was second to Special Tiara in the Grade One AP McCoy Celebration Chase, a much better effort than he was able to make at the Cheltenham Festival last month. “Of his three runs this year, of course it’s the best,” Henderson said. “And that’s the best he’s looked, too.
“He looks fantastic, he looks as if he’s the physical specimen that we’re looking for. He’s run his race. We can build on it.”
While Henderson does not suggest Sprinter Sacre can reproduce the ability that once made him the highest-rated steeplechaser since the 1960s, he feels the horse has taken time to recover mentally from the heart problem that caused him to be pulled up at Kempton in late 2013. And the trainer also voiced his displeasure over the unseasonably soft state of the going here, which he felt had also been a problem for Bobs Worth.
“I have to say it’s an awful shame they have to go watering these courses at this time of year when you have horses that blatantly want good ground and you’re not allowed it. I’m not saying it’s what’s beaten him but we’ve always said he’s a better horse on good ground and it’s not. All I’m asking these two boys today is, they don’t have to win but they have to give us the right signals to say, we go on.” Of Sprinter Sacre’s race, he added: “I didn’t see anything there that says you stop.”
Bobs Worth was 11th of 12 finishers in the Bet365 Gold Cup, having never got into the argument, and he has now been well beaten on all three starts this season. But Henderson pointed out that the horse has been unable to race on anything less than testing ground for more than a year. “My feeling is much the same as after the earlier race,” he said. “That was not a fair test,” and he again deplored the extent of the watering that had taken place.
