“I needed to get back,” Daryl Jacob said with a broad smile after his first ride since mid-December was a winner here on Friday, and Sceau Royal, one of the favourites for the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham in March, could not have made his return to action any more straightforward. Alan King’s four-year-old jumped eight flights of hurdles to win the card’s feature race, but Jacob can scarcely have noticed his partner leaving the ground.
There may prove to be better horses than Sceau Royal in the Triumph Hurdle in two months’ time, but after this success in the Chatteris Fen Hurdle, it is hard to believe there will be anything in the field that is faster over a hurdle. A mistake at the second-last was the only blemish as Sceau Royal flew around Huntingdon, measuring every flight with rare precision for a hurdler of any age or experience.
“He’s growing in confidence and getting more and more professional every time he runs,” Jacob said afterwards. “His form was good coming in today, and I think he stepped up again. He’s very slick, that’s his big advantage. All roads go to Cheltenham and he’s one to look forward to.”
The last few weeks have been frustrating for Jacob, who missed the busy Christmas programme after being injured in a fall while schooling at Nicky Henderson’s stable in mid-December. His retainer with Simon Munir and Isaac Suede, the owners of Sceau Royal, means that he now has several more potential Cheltenham contenders to prepare for the season’s main event.
His book of rides for the Festival could well include L’Ami Serge, who finished fourth behind Douvan in last year’s Supreme Novice Hurdle and made a solid debut over fences in almost unraceable ground at Plumpton earlier this month. Nicky Henderson’s six-year-old should take the next step towards a novice event at Cheltenham when he runs at Wetherby .
“He’s schooled well since [winning at] Plumpton so hopefully it’s another stop forward tomorrow,” Jacob said. “I don’t think the trip will be a problem as he’s a horse that will get two-and-a-half easily. It was horrible at Plumpton and he got away with that, so I wouldn’t be concerned about the ground.”
Sceau Royal was a 2-11 chance for Friday’s race, and even an easy seven-length success was not enough to shift his price of 16-1 for the Triumph, in a market headed by Aidan O’Brien’s Ivanovich Gorbatov at 5-1. Nor is he even the clear market choice from King’s stable, as the trainer has a typically strong hand in the juvenile division which includes two more 16-1 chances in Gibralfaro and Who Dares Wins.
“He’s so quick, and even when he’s tight, he’s good,” King said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever trained one that’s quicker getting from A to B over a hurdle, and that was probably his problem earlier in the season.
“We were trying to settle him and he’d take two lengths out of them in a race and get there too soon. He is settling better now, but he really is slick over a hurdle. They’ve all got to run again. He [Sceau Royal] is in the Betfair [Hurdle], but he’s up to 144 now after the Finale Hurdle [last Saturday] boosted his form so he’s not thrown in. We could look at the Victor Ludorum or the Adonis. Gilbralfaro goes to Ascot a week tomorrow, and Who Dares Wins will go to Cheltenham on Trials day [at the end of January]. They’ll sort themselves out really, we’re in a very lucky position and I’ll keep them apart as long as I can.”
King has two of the market leaders for the valuable BetFred Classic Chase at Warwick on Saturday in Midnight Prayer and Sego Success, but with a cold night forecast, the card will need to survive a precautionary inspection at 8am.
“We’ve had the latest forecasts, and the worst one is down to -3C with a wind chill of -5C,” Jane Hedley, Warwick’s clerk of the course, said on Friday. “We think it would be prudent to flag that up with a precautionary inspection.
“That said, we remain very optimistic that the covers we have in place will provide sufficient protection. It’s two or three degrees colder than they were saying earlier in the week for Friday night, but the covers are down and we have absolutely no frost in the ground at the moment. We were fully raceable even first thing this morning.”
