A trip to the Winter Million fixture at Windsor now looks likely for exciting novice chaser L'Eau Du Sud.
Dan Skelton had originally been inclined to aim his Henry VIII winner at the Kingmaker at Warwick but feels the Lightning Novices' Chase might work better in terms of timing.
“All those graded novice chases are sort of worth the same, so money wouldn’t dictate where you went. He’s won a Grade One and I just feel if we went to Windsor, it might give him a longer gap to work up towards the Arkle, because if you ran him in the Warwick race (February 8), you could do a bit of work but not as much as you can do in seven weeks, so I just think tactically it might work better going that way," he argued.
“If Windsor is off, we’ve always got the back-up of Warwick or Newbury. It might just look like Windsor now.”
Sadly stablemate Madara picked up an injury when finishing second to Gemirande in Saturday's Nyetimber December Gold Cup.
The former Sophie Leech inmate travelled smoothly through the contest and it looked just a case of when Harry Skelton wanted to press the button. However, he jumped markedly to his left at the second last and was outstayed up the hill to be beaten a length by Gemirande.
“Unfortunately, he’s got a little injury, which I think kind of explains why he went left two out, but that’s racing, as they say,” the trainer told Sky Sports Racing.
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