Nicky Henderson: “He is in fantastic form and went to Kempton two weeks ago just for a little leg stretch, which he enjoyed, and everything has gone according to plan, it’s all up to him now.”

CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL – FRIDAY

1:20 G1 Triumph Hurdle

Fantasy World (Nico De Boinville)

It probably is a bit ‘fantasy world’ to think he can come out and win a Triumph off the back of what he’s done so far over hurdles but I can certainly eliminate his first run at Musselburgh because it’s a very specialist track and just didn’t work at all for him where so much went wrong. I then ran him in the Adonis just six days later because I needed to get some experience into him and he performed much better, he’s certainly getting there anyway.

His jumping at home has been good and this stiff track will suit, but I am under no illusions that he does face quite a task.

2:00 County Hurdle

Joyeuse (Nico De Boinville)

Unfortunately, Khrisma who I was hoping would get into this, has missed the cut so she will now go for a valuable Mares’ Novices’ Handicap at Kelso in a couple of weeks time, which leaves us with Joyeuse to fly the flag.

She is a very good mare in her own right who has already won a big Hcap at Newbury but has struggled over fences so we’ve found ourselves back hurdling and I thought she ran a good race at Ascot last time, albeit last of four in a tactical contest. Going to the last she looked the winner but made an error at a crucial time and paid the price for it, however, it showed she retains plenty of ability and has a good attitude.

She’s been to Kempton for an away day and wears cheekpieces for the first time which can only help. She seems in good shape and could run well at nice odds with Unibet.

4:00 G1 Gold Cup

Jango Baie (Nico De Boinville)

This fella is very solid who jumps well and we’re pretty sure he stays well too; you could even say that Kempton looked a tad sharp for him for a moment as he just got a bit outpaced for a little bit after the last down the back but quickened up nicely in the end in what was a bit of a stop-start King George.

There’s five that you could take out of that race and they’d all come into the Gold Cup with extremely realistic chances because there is nothing between them at all.

This race has always been the plan and we did think about running in the Denman but it was horrible ground that day and I didn’t want to give him an unnecessary hard race just for the sake of it. He has plenty of chasing experience and runs well fresh so it wasn’t a hard decision to save him for this.

He is in fantastic form and went to Kempton two weeks ago just for a little leg stretch, which he enjoyed, and everything has gone according to plan, it’s all up to him now.

5:20 Martin Pipe

East India Express (Freddie Gordon)

He ran a great race at Windsor last time giving plenty of weight to the winner and had he not made a small blunder at the last, might probably had won.

Freddie Gordon knows him extremely well, and rides him every day at home, and it would be nice to make him leading Conditional this year.

The good advantage to us is that we have the most experienced conditional riding a horse he knows inside out who has already won over course and distance.

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