Paul Nicholls has confirmed Bravemansgame will run in Saturday's bet365 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby.
Earlier in the day he told the Nick Luck Daily Podcast it was a '50-50' call over whether last season's King George hero or Pic D'Orhy would represent the stable at the weekend.
However on Tuesday evening he tweeted:
After this evening discussing the weekend with Bryan Drew and Johhny de la Hay and with the prospect of soft ground and an uncertain forecast up to @haydockraces in 3 weeks we have decided to run Bravemansgame saturday @WetherbyRaces and leave Pic D’Orhy for @Ascot on 25th.…
— Paul Nicholls OBE (@PFNicholls) October 31, 2023
Lucinda Russell’s Ahoy Senor disappointed as a hot favourite for last year’s renewal, trailing home last of five runners behind Bravemansgame, but is on course for a rematch.
The eight-year-old showed his true colours in the second half of the season – winning the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham in January before rounding off his campaign with a runner-up finish behind Shishkin in the Aintree Bowl.
Ahoy Senor is entered in both the Charlie Hall and the bet365 Hurdle this weekend, but Russell’s partner and assistant Peter Scudamore said: “I’m almost certain that Ahoy Senor will go for the chase. He seems OK, we’re happy enough with him.”
Dashel Drasher also holds a Charlie Hall engagement, but his trainer Jeremy Scott is leaning towards running over the smaller obstacles at this stage.
He said: “We’ve just been discussing it; are we better over fences or over hurdles? It’s an interesting question really.
“I think we’ll bide our time and see what everybody else is doing and try to work it out, but I think in principle the most likely race, I would imagine, would be the hurdle.”
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