The five-day entries were announced yesterday for Saturday's Betfair Chase and the hope is that we see the eagerly-awaited return to the track of 2015 Gold Cup winner Coneygree who was due to school under Richard Johnson this morning. Champion jockey Johnson is likely to partner the 9-year-old in the absence of regular pilot Nico de Boinville who is reported to have broken a bone in his arm after the fall of Le Reve in the BetVictor Handicap Chase at Cheltenham on Saturday.
They race over jumps at Southwell this afternoon and there is a decent novices' limited handicap chase with a n umber of unexposed types including Templehills who makes his chase debut for Nigel Twiston-Davies.
The 5-year-old certainly has the scope to jump a fence and won a couple of modest hurdles in the autumn suggesting that he would make into a decent 3m chaser in time. The yard waste little time sending him over the larger obstacles and I would put a line through his last run at Aintree.
Ben Pauling has always thought a fair amount of Ballyhenry (1.15) and he gets the nod on his chase debut; the 6-year-old has had problems with his breathing and it is possible that first time out might be the time to catch him.
Definitly Grey won over C&D from an 8lbs lower mark on his penultimate start and was very well backed to follow up at Fakenham last month before going down to a well-handicapped rival when his hurdling was less than fluent.
The 5-y-old has been raised 2lbs for that effort but there should be more to come and he must go close but Aliandy (1.45) could be very well treated for Kim Bailey and today's better ground should suit more than the soft ground he encountered on his handicap debut at Catterick on New Year's Day. That pleasing effort was over the minimum trip and todays additional half mile should suit.
At Fakenham the useful hurdler Join The Clan (2.35) can take the Beginners' Chase for Jonjo O'Neill whose string remain in and out despite winning the BetVictor Gold Cup with Taquin Du Seuil at the weekend. The selection finished last of three on his sole previous start over fences but he wasn't beaten too far behind the top-class Bristol De Mai at Leicester and he certainly has the scope for fences.
At Lingfield Lava Light (2.25) drops back to the minimum trip having shown plenty of pace when runner up at Leicester over an additional furlong last month. Jimmy Fortune is likely to let the filly bowl along on her first start over 5f and an opening mark of 74 looks workable.
James Given's Street Jazz likes to lead and she has the plum draw in stall one; if the first-time headgear works the oracle she may prove hard to pass but the hope is she will set the race up for the Henry Candy-trained juvenile.
The feature event is the 10f handicap and Strong Force looked quite smart when winning at Chelmsford earlier in the month and his young apprentice takes off a valuable 5lbs. His draw in stall eight is a concern, however, for one who made all last time and preference is for the only other 3-y-old in the field Special Season (2.55) who is already proven on today's surface having won over a mile here last December.
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