Why no Alaivan in the Spring hurdle on sun??

From yesterday. You can search for these on the sportinglife website.

Alaivan will complete his JCB Triumph Hurdle preparations at Fairyhouse later this month.

Edward O'Grady's charge was favourite for the Cheltenham showpiece before a Boxing Day defeat at the hooves of Carlito Brigante.

"The result was disappointing without a doubt. There are two sides of looking at everything though. The good side was that he jumped superbly," O'Grady told sportinglife.com.

"The downside was that he was challeneged by a horse of Noel Meade's early on and he got very buzzed up - both he and the other horse cut each other's throats down the far side. If I were to pick a positive it was probably to his credit that he managed to stay going and finished second - the other horse burned off and finished down the field.

"I would say the proximity of the third, who had been second to Alaivan at Gowran is where I'd be coming from. At Gowran Alaivan beat the same horse with consumate ease having run what I would call a proper sort of race. "

O'Grady hopes to see his charge return to winning ways at Fairyhouse.

"The horse (Alavain) is lovely and the plan is to run him at Fairyhouse, and that'll be his only run before Cheltenham," he confirmed.

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The plan fits in nicely with the holidays too and more time to get that extra piece of work into them after the frost and snow.

O'Grady's are running bad now. Very few runners too.

Must be some sort of a virus there.