Nicky Henderson has lavished praise on Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle favourite Jeriko Du Reponet, stressing how impressed he's been by the horse's turn of foot.
The well-regarded four-year-old made it two from two over jumps with a one and three-quarter lengths victory in Newbury's Coral Committed To Safer Gambling 'Introductory' Hurdle on Saturday, justifying 2/5 favouritism under James Bowen who stood in for the injured Nico de Boinville.
Jeriko Du Reponet sits atop the antepost market at 5/1 with the sponsors for the Sky Bet Supreme - the Cheltenham Festival curtain-raiser - and he's expected to have one more run before lining up at Prestbury Park on Tuesday March 12.
Speaking on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast, Henderson said: "I thought looking at the race that the obvious thing was that there were two horses in there that looked like they could have a lot more speed than we might have. They were sort of quick two-milers, and a sprint wasn't going to help us.
"We didn't want to just go out there and blitz them and make the running to kill the race off as we'd probably kill him (his chances) off too. So we decided to ride him conservatively even though that might have been the best way to get him beaten.
"The thing that impressed me was his turn of foot, because that was superior to the two horses that did have a turn of foot. I spoke to David Bass (rider of runner-up Secret Squirrel) afterwards and he thought his horse was pretty smart at doing that (quickening) and was quite surprised our horse could do it too.
"He really is a gorgeous looking horse, he's a great big chaser (in the making) and he's got a lot of class. To me, he looks like a two-miler.
"He's got to run again, there's no doubt about that. The obvious one that comes up is Haydock. We all love Haydock but we all know what the ground is like this time of the year. We'll just have to regroup and see what we can find."
The Seven Barrows trainer was out of luck later on the same card when 9/4 chance Willmount was pulled-up in the Coral Challow Novices' Hurdle, a disappointing effort that Henderson feels the horse could bounce back from.
He said: "We've got issues (with Willmount) and we know what they are, we'll just have to see what we can do about them.
"He's perfectly sound and everything, no wheels have fallen off or anything like that. We'll just have to see in the short term and the long term."
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