Jockey Jack Kennedy is hoping a week of Dubai sunshine can help him pull off a near-miraculous recovery in time to ride at the Cheltenham festival.
The 23-year-old is in holiday mode in the Middle East this week as he continues to recover from breaking his leg last month.
With Cheltenham starting in just four weeks, the odds don’t look to favour Kennedy and he doesn’t figure in most ante-post betting lists about who will be crowned leading rider at the festival.
Nevertheless, Kennedy’s surgeon is pleased with his progress and the rider is due to have a potentially vital consultation with him once he returns from Dubai.
“It’s all going well and he’ll be going back up to Paddy Kenny in two weeks when we’ll know more,” said Kennedy’s agent, Kevin O’Ryan, on Tuesday.
“He’s very happy with how it’s coming along but they’re not going to give him false hope either, so it’s very hard to know yet [if he can make Cheltenham],” he added.
The outstanding young rider has endured a torrid time with injuries in recent years and his spill at Naas on January 8th was the fifth leg fracture of his career.
Gordon Elliott has insisted Kennedy is his number one rider and will be on board stars such as Mighty Potter at Cheltenham if he’s ready in time.
However, Elliott has also pointed out that the rider will need to prove his fitness beforehand at one of the Irish meetings that take place the weekend before the festival.
In his absence, Davy Russell has come back from a short-lived retirement to take over the responsibility on Elliott’s horses and is a general 8-1 third-favourite to be top rider at Cheltenham.
Russell won the leading jockey award in 2018 with four winners and has 25 Cheltenham festival winners in all.
Other likely leading contenders for the Elliott team include Teahupoo in the Stayers’ Hurdle and Gerri Colombe in the Brown Advisory Chase.
Elliott himself is an 8-1 second favourite to be top trainer once again, having won it back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.
He faces a massive task in managing the feat again, though, given the overwhelming power of Willie Mullins’s team.
Not only is Mullins at cramped odds to land the leading trainer award for a 10th time, he is 5-4 to outscore the entire British contingent at next month’s festival.
With a record 88 festival victories under his belt the Irishman is just 11-2 with Sky Bet to train a dozen or more winners and take his overall tally to a remarkable 100.
Topping his Cheltenham festival team is likely to be the Gold Cup favourite Galopin Des Champs, although a late addition to the Blue Riband event could yet be his stable companion Capodanno.
The JP McManus-owned star landed a Grade One at the Punchestown festival last April but has yet to appear this season.
He still features in the Gold Cup entries and could make his reappearance at Gowran this weekend.
Capodanno is one of seven left in Saturday’s Grade Two Red Mills Chase after the latest acceptance stage.
Also featuring in the race is Haut En Couleurs, who fell at the last in the Kinloch Brae with victory looking assured on his last start in Thurles. Haut En Coleurs is as low as 8-1 with some firms for the Ryanair Chase but would need to be supplemented into that festival race.
A rare cross-channel contender may end up in the mix too as Donald McCain has left in Minella Drama.
A winner at Musselburgh on New Year’s Day, Minella Drama has an international range of weekend options as he is also in the Ascot Chase on Saturday, as well as a contest in Kelso the day before.
Saturday’s other Gowran trial, the Grade Three Red Mills Hurdle, also has seven left in it led by the multiple Grade One winner Sharjah.
Joseph O’Brien’s versatile star Darasso, winner of the hurdle in 2019, is again a possible starter but holds the option of lining up for Saturday’s chase.
Fitter Protektorat
One of the main cross-channel hopes for the Gold Cup is last year’s third, Protektorat, who trainer Dan Skelton is confident will strip fitter than when only fourth in a trial at Cheltenham last month.
“I hold my hands up after Cheltenham — I didn’t have him as fit as I thought he was,” Skelton said on Tuesday.
“If we’d gone into that race with me saying ‘this is a prep run’, I think everyone would have come out and said it was a lovely prep run. He blew up turning in and stayed on from the back of the last, that wasn’t the plan. I thought and hoped he’d win, and we’d go on to the Gold Cup, but that’s not how it’s worked out.
“He was third in the Gold Cup last year and is a bigger, stronger, better horse this year. I think you all saw at Haydock [Betfair Chase] when he’s at his absolute best how good he can be.
“We’ve just got to knuckle down, and we have knuckled down in the couple of weeks since the Cotswold Chase, and get him like he was at Haydock.
“If he goes into the Gold Cup like he was at Haydock, I think you’ll find his run in the Cotswold Chase will be significantly behind him and I think he’s got a real good chance,” he added.
