Cheltenham options open for Royal Pagaille
Connections say they will not be rushing into a decision on Royal Pagaille’s goal for the Cheltenham Festival.
The seven-year-old belied a 16lb rise following his Kempton success over Christmas when he made it three wins from as many outings this season with Saturday’s fabulous 16-length win over Potters Legend in the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock.
He holds four entries for the Festival with the National Hunt Chase, the Marsh Novices’ Chase, the Festival Novices’ Chase (formerly the RSA) and the Gold Cup itself all being eyed as options.
Royal Pagaille’s path could also be mapped by the decision made on Festival Novices’ Chase favourite Monkfish’s path due to him also being owned by Susannah Ricci.
The handicapper’s view on his Haydock win will also have a say but for now, Joe Chambers, racing manager for the owner, says they will not be jumping into a commitment.
“There’s no bad news to report,”Chambers told Racing TV’s Luck On Sunday.
“We put him in the Gold Cup opportunistically at the time because it was closing when the travel ban was coming in and we just thought for the sake of the initial entry fee we could always take him out at the next forfeit stage on February 9 if his next run didn’t go according to plan.
“But I guess we’ll be leaving him in it, and we’ll be leaving him in the novice races as well.
“We’ll see what the handicapper says on Tuesday as to what the substance of the form is. We thought we got fairly hammered after Kempton as he went up not once but twice.”
