It has become a race against the clock to get Alderwood ready in time for another
Cheltenham
tilt but trainer
Tom Mullins
remains hopeful his star performer will get the chance to attempt a festival hat-trick in eight weeks time.
The JP McManus owned horse that famously brought up the record-breaking 14th Irish success at the 2013 festival when landing the Grand Annual Chase has been out of action since late-October sustaining a hairline fracture of a pastern on his first start of the season at Naas.
But he has been back at Mullins's yard since the turn of the new year and Alderwood already has a couple of Grade One entries at Cheltenham in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Ryanair Chase.
The 10-year-old was a top-flight scorer over hurdles as a novice in 2012, the year he memorably also landed the County Hurdle at the festival, and at the moment his trainer is delighted simply to have his stable star back on the premises.
“He was lucky at Naas because after he skidded and picked up the fracture he did a circuit. With hindsight it would have been better to have pulled him up. It’s great to have him back and even though it might be a bit of rush, we’re aiming to take him back to Cheltenham. He obviously likes the place!” the Co Kilkenny-based trainer said yesterday. “He’s been back here for about two weeks. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get a race into him before going across but he was actually out for only six weeks so we’re hopeful we can get him there,” he added. “At the moment I’ve no preference for him for any race at Cheltenham.”
Update bulletin
In other Cheltenham news, Dessie Hughes has issued an update bulletin on Our Conor ahead of the BHP Irish Champion Hurdle in 12 days time but warned his brilliant Triumph Hurdle winner is unlikely to peak until the festival in March.
The five-year-old faded to third behind Hurricane Fly in the closing stages of the Ryanair Hurdle over Christmas but Hughes was far from disappointed.
“He’s 100 per cent, couldn’t be better,” the Curragh trainer said yesterday. “He was last off the bridle at Christmas and it was just race fitness that beat him. I’ve no doubt he’ll improve on that.”
Willie Mullins's British raid last weekend yielded a mixed bag of results but the champion trainer has left a trio of novices – Sure Reef, Sizing Tennessee and Valseur Lido – among the entries for a potentially informative novice hurdle at Haydock on Saturday.
