AEGEAN DAWN, who was ruled out of Saturday's Paddy Power Imperial Cup earlier in the week and was a doubt for Cheltenham, is set to make the festival after making "remarkable" improvement.
The unbeaten six-year-old disappointed in a schooling session on Wednesday, leading Nicky Henderson to conclude that "something is obviously troubling him".
But on Saturday the trainer said he now expected Aegean Dawn to contest the Coral Cup, for which he is as short as 5-1, after he was taken out of the Vincent O'Brien County Hurdle.
"He is extremely likely to come into the Coral Cup," he said. "The turnaround in the last 48 hours has been quite remarkable.
"I would have sworn two orthree days ago that he had absolutely no chance. I was very unhappy with the horse. He schooled yesterday and worked today and everybody said he is fine.
"I'd schooled him twice and he hadn't been jumping at all well. There was no way he was going to get here but we have probably decided to go Coral now."
Why does Henderson, who is presumably a millionaire, as surely are 99% of his owners, mess around like this for the sake of making a few quid from inflated prices?
Why does Henderson, who is presumably a millionaire, as surely are 99% of his owners, mess around like this for the sake of making a few quid from inflated prices?
Why does Henderson, who is presumably a millionaire, as surely are 99% of his owners, mess around like this for the sake of making a few quid from inflated prices?
It aint the money its the fact that they can thats the thrill imo
Why does Henderson, who is presumably a millionaire, as surely are 99% of his owners, mess around like this for the sake of making a few quid from inflated prices? It aint the money its the fact that they can thats the thrill imo
he is def not doing it for the thrill imo, hes got better things to be doing. of course hes doing it for the money. if he or anyone else was offered say 200k for something with very little risk which this is, no matter whether youre flat broke or have a few bob in the bank ur obv going to do it.
he is def not doing it for the thrill imo, hes got better things to be doing. of course hes doing it for the money. if he or anyone else was offered say 200k for something with very little risk which this is, no matter whether youre flat broke or hav
Have no problem with him pulling Aegean Dawn out of the Imperial Cup, but to say the horse has a problem and is doubtful for Cheltenham is the issue. If he had just said 'were going to go straight to the Coral Cup' his price for that would have shortened - instead it drifted out - wonder who benefitted from that?
And why he never said anything about the Binocular situation last week is even more puzzling if you really believe he and his owners don't lay (or back other horses in the same race at inflated prices). There is no other reason why he wouldn't have come out and made a statement about the possible Binocular drug problem - bookies could then have removed him from their lists and reformed their markets accordingly and offered a special price on Binocular (with a run).
Have no problem with him pulling Aegean Dawn out of the Imperial Cup, but to say the horse has a problem and is doubtful for Cheltenham is the issue. If he had just said 'were going to go straight to the Coral Cup' his price for that would have short