The Royal Ascot Racing Club have already had a winner at the meeting that bears their name and in the Derby at Epsom – now they are dreaming of success at the Cheltenham Festival after Advisor booked his place in the JCB Triumph Hurdle with victory at Ascot on Saturday.
The four-year-old, who moved from Michael Bell’s stable on the Flat to join champion jumps trainer Paul Nicholls, is around 16-1 for the juvenile crown.
“It was a real thrill to kick off in the jumping game for the Club with a horse as exciting as this one,” said racing manager Harry Herbert. We were going to have at least one as a jumper and this horse was in training with Michael Bell and was the obvious one rather than buy one at the sales. We had one under our noses who would have improved a bit and still won nice handicaps on the Flat, but also with the thought you can hope he might be a classy hurdling type. He’s quite a big animal who is only now starting to fill to his frame. He’s a different shape to the horse who was running last year. There was a huge difference between the horse that won at Newbury in the unsaddling enclosure to the one we saw on Saturday. There was a huge improvement and that is what Paul had said, judged on his homework and the way he was schooling. The horse is really enthusiastic and enjoying his hurdling. Paul thinks he will improve significantly with his races and also a field that goes a bit quicker would be to his advantage. That does point encouragingly to a crack at the Triumph and hopefully having a fun day out for the members. He’s going straight there. He’s very good over his hurdles and schools well. We have had some tremendous success over the years with Motivator in the Derby and a winner at Royal Ascot. So to have a winner at the Festival would be phenomenal.”
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