STS - if your slips are for the Arkle I reckon you are done for no matter what. Along with many others.

Must be hard training horses with owners that give those sort of declarations, it leaves you no choice.

The Seven Barrows trainer reported the six-year-old to be "very perky" on Sunday morning and was at a loss to explain his under-par display in the Kingmaker Novices' Chase.

Sent off 1-5 favourite to beat two rivals, he ran way below form and was beaten 11 lengths by Violet Dancer, which appears to have damaged his prospects for the Cheltenham Festival.

However, Henderson dismissed reports that L'Ami Serge would definitely miss the Racing Post Arkle Trophy, for which he was pushed out from 7-1 second favourite to as big as 16-1. He also holds an engagement in the JLT Novices' Chase.

"He is 100 per cent this morning. He was perfectly all right when we scoped him at the races yesterday," said Henderson.


"He's sound as a pound this morning and we will have to try to find out what went wrong, because it did.

"He was never comfortable at any stage. Obviously it was pretty horrendous ground but he has run on soft ground before, he has run in heavy ground, and it's not been a worry.

"He schooled on Thursday and he was electric. His work has been brilliant and he just didn't turn up on Saturday. I do not know why. We will check him out tomorrow.

"The only thing I would emphasise is that we are not ruling the Arkle out, we are not ruling anything out. I certainly wouldn't rule out the Arkle but if there was a forfeit for the JLT tomorrow we would leave him in that as well.

"We scoped him at the races and he was 100 per cent clean. He's sound and very perky this morning. You wouldn't know he'd been anywhere and this horse all week has been in fantastic form.

"Daryl (Jacob) schooled him on Thursday and you will never see a horse jump better, but that horse didn't jump yesterday. Whether it was ground or what, I don't know.

"We've got to sort it out, we've got to see where we are."

@Quevega hopefully you're wrong and the trainer gets to decide the plans for horses, not owners or the public. Otherwise what is the point of training? Runs are always excusable and the festival is what matters, not some prep race on bad ground where something clearly was amiss.

Horse racing is turning into a more publicity stunt these last few years with gigginstown etc constantly on the TVs.

Yeah definitely is value there. It's the chance you (I) take with trying to get away from a short anti post fav at the festival . It'll continue to be up and down .

Violet isn't a 6 times G1 winner, the bounce factor comes into it after a long layoff and was Faugheen seasonal appearances where he always performs below par(due to weight & fitness). Serge had a race just less than a month ago so race fitness and bounce factor can be ruled out. I don't think that was the cause, he just didn't jumped well and maybe needs to be ridden more aggressively and obviously something on the day was amiss. He previously ran to RP figures of 154 and 156 in his 2 runs over fences, now got 11 lengths beating from a mid 140 horse, that just isn't possible unless Violet improved to 160 which is hard to believe.

he beat Violet Dancer 15 lengths over hurdles giving him 3lbs too - different discipline admittedly but it's not as if Violet Dancer jumped him into submission yesterday.

Everything you say about Faugheen/NC is correct timtin - but it's also a fact that Mullins was quoted post defeat as saying they might have worked him too hard during the week.

It's possible they might find a muscular issue when they examine him more closely I suppose.

Timtin -bounce factor has nothing to do with the horses mentioned, all had uninterrupted training. What is been said that sometimes horses train with over exuberance wasting precious energy and fatigue easier as a result. This definitely happened to American Pharoah, and possibly happened to Faugheen against NC and L'ami Serge yesterday. Mullins wouldn't allow it to happen to UDS.
You do seem to agree that the form shown yesterday is below par. As for tactics LS should walk all over yesterdays opposition ridden anyway whatsoever. That implies either the horse is injured (which apparently isn't) or he left his race somewhere else.

Henderson has confirmed L'Ami Serge for The Arkle and says nothing came to light about his Kingmaker run. Vaniteux also runs.

Sorry, just quoted Bill Esdale off Twitter.  Backed him in the W/O market 6/1 on the back of it.

Fingers crossed its right anyway... will be nice to have a run for the money.

@BillEsdaile
City AM Racing Editor, MD of Square in the Air - clients include Racing Post, Betway, Sporting Index and Gloucester Rugby Club.

"Vaniteux and L'Ami Serge will both go to the Arkle. Nothing ever came to light about Kingmaker flop. 'Extraordinary mystery'"

Apols

Been alot of talk about lami serge going jlt this evening despite henderson saying he goes arkle earlier in the week.

Not again! I've already accepted the horse will do battle with Douvan in the Arkle and probably get a thumping in the process.

Yes that's where I heard it first, he was tipping every henderson horse,  then he said vaniteux goes arkle (obviously) but even henderson thinks he can't beat douvan.

Hendo quiet plays down his horses chances publicly, especially when up against a hot pot.
I imagine he thinks he has a chance.

Is it confirmed then?