Trainer Kim Bailey has confirmed that Imperial Aura will not be heading to Cheltenham for next week's Paddy Power Gold Cup.
The seven-year-old was an impressive winner of the Northern Trust Company Novices' Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival back in March and he had been expected to return to the scene of that success after emerging triumphant on his seasonal reappearance at Carlisle on Sunday.
Indeed, that victory had seen him installed as the favourite to win the Paddy Power Gold Cup a week on Saturday, but Bailey has now confirmed the race will come too soon for his stable star.
“The Paddy Power will come far too soon for him and I would be out of that one completely,” Bailey was quoted as saying by the Racing Post. “He's a horse who doesn't want to be running again very quickly. If Carlisle had been abandoned, we'd have gone straight to the Paddy Power but we've now got other things to think of.”
Bailey went on to reveal that Imperial Aura's next port of call will either be in the Grade 2 Chanelle Pharma Chase at Ascot on November 21 or the Grade 2 Fitzdares Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon on December 6.
“There's the race at Ascot that Altior and Cyrname met in last year [Chanelle Pharma Chase] and also the Peterborough Chase, so one of those two will be where his next run is going to be,” Bailey added.
