Alan King’s Yanworth back on track for the Cheltenham Festival with Grade 2 Dipper Novices’ Chase win
YANWORTH got his chasing career back on track with a hard-fought victory in the BetBright Dipper Chase.
Alan King was a relieved man as he watched JP McManus’ ace give him his 1,500th winner with an improved round of jumping on Cheltenham’s New Year’s Day card.
He grinned: “He’s going to be the death of me.”
Yanworth – beaten favourite in last season’s Champion Hurdle – had made a winning start over fences before falling at Exeter in November.
He made mistakes when chasing home Willoughby Court at Newbury last month but the 15-8 joint-favourite emphatically turned that form around with a 5lbs pull.
But it was his jumping that was the key to his neck defeat of Sizing Tennessee under Barry Geraghty.
King added: “His jumping was good. Full credit to Wayne Hutchinson and Yogi Breisner – they’ve done a lot of work with him.
“They’ve had two good sessions to get him to shorten a little bit and that was very evident as he was very good at it.
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He could run next in the Scilly Isles Chase at Sandown or Ascot’s Reynoldstown Chase before a trip to the Cheltenham Festival.
Sun Bets make him a 10-1 shot for the RSA Chase and an 8-1 chance for the shorter JLT Chase.
Wholestone is on course for the Sun Bets Stayers' Hurdle after an impressive performance in the Dornan Engineering Relkeel Hurdle.
Disappointing at Newbury last time, Nigel Twiston-Davies’ ace bounced back at his favourite course under Daryl Jacob.
His track record stands at an impressive four wins from six visits after the 9-4 joint-favourite’s comfortable defeat of Agrapart with Colin’s Sister back in third.
Wholestone – owned by Simon Munir and Isaac Souede – was cut to 16-1 for the Stayers' Hurdle.
Twiston-Davies said: “I’m chuffed to bits with that. He was a little bit sick and sorry for himself after Newbury but he had run superbly before.
“I used to own half of Colin’s Sister so that was nice. We’ll have one more run then we’ll be back for the stayers.”
Twiston-Davies – notching a double after Ballyhill’s 9-1 success earlier on the card – revealed his Gold Cup hope Bristol De Mai was being treated for stomach ulcers after a disappointing run in the King George on Boxing Day.
Jockey Tom Bellamy left Twiston-Davies scrabbling around for jockeys for two of his Cheltenham runners. He failed the breathalyser after clearly having enjoyed New Year’s Eve a little too much.
Adam Wedge was another jockey to make a bad start to 2018. He missed out Exeter’s third-last fence on 4-7 favourite Report To Base – easily first past the post – and was handed a 21-day ban for taking the wrong course.