The New One impresses as he wins Cheltenham’s International Hurdle

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/dec/13/the-new-one-cheltenham-international-hurdle

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Inspired by having trained consecutive winners, Nigel Twiston-Davies launched into a pugnacious defence of The New One, the star of his stable at nearby Naunton and an easy winner of Saturday’s International Hurdle here. “He gets knocked the whole time,” the trainer said, though the horse is popular enough to be 3-1 second-favourite for March’s Champion Hurdle, half a point shorter than before he ran.

Pressed to explain who was doing the knocking, Twiston-Davies said: “In the papers, on Channel 4 this morning. ‘He jumps to the right, he does this, he does that.’ He’s good. He doesn’t need to be knocked. Just cos he’s British doesn’t mean to say he’s bad.”

It is not unusual for a trainer, suffused with the relief of victory, to round on the doubters for filling them with the fear of possible defeat. But Twiston-Davies is happier than most of his rivals to speak freely and that extends to a fairly rare willingness to assess the potential shortcomings of other people’s horses.

Asked to discuss Faugheen, Willie Mullins’s unbeaten six-year-old who is the only horse ahead of The New One in the Champion Hurdle betting, Twiston-Davies gazed into the future and foretold what may happen up this famous hill in the spring. “Most of his form’s over longer distances. Will he have quite the turn of foot that this horse has got? I would like to think we can sit behind him, then gently overtake going to the last and … bye-bye.”

Twiston-Davies is not so keen on this confrontation as to hasten it by taking The New One over for the Irish Champion Hurdle in January. For now, he is content to pursue domestic prizes, even though it will probably restrict his horse to one or two runs before the Festival.

If the horse recovers from this test sufficiently quickly, he may go to Kempton for the Christmas Hurdle on Boxing Day. Failing that, he is likely to be seen next in Wincanton’s Kingwell Hurdle in February.

Twiston-Davies’s other winner was Blaklion, who provided a huge moment in the young career of Ryan Hatch, his jockey. Hatch was given the chance when Blaklion’s intended rider, Jamie Moore, was injured in a fall.

The day had looked much less promising for Twiston-Davies when, in earlier races, Little Jon crashed through the wings of a fence and Splash of Ginge fell. Both horses returned unharmed and will be in action again this winter but the same is most unlikely to be true of their errant stablemate Mad Moose, who has become known for refusing to race so many times.

Granted the chance to show he had left such antics behind him, the beast planted himself once more when the tape went up for The New One’s race. The British Horseracing Authority will reconsider his case but it seems certain that his racing career is at an end.

Fans of jump racing have spent the whole of this year hoping that the same is not true of Sprinter Sacre and they finally received some unqualified good news from his trainer, Nicky Henderson. “He was back looking like that aeroplane,” Henderson said of a schooling session that had taken place on Friday. “He was pretty swift.”

Apparently that promise continued in a piece of work on Saturday morning, when the horse “was starting to look like the proper Sprinter. Things looks good.” But the trainer is nevertheless minded to miss a possible target at Kempton over Christmas. “I do want to have a racecourse gallop before we have a race,” he said. “And therefore your racecourse gallop is actually only going to come over Christmas.”

Sprinter Sacre is now expected to make his comeback in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot on 17 January.

Henderson also had news of other top chasers who have been off for a while. Bobs Worth has been encouraging in his work for Ireland’s Lexus Chase on 28 December but Simonsig is no certainty to line up at Kempton on Boxing Day. “I can’t believe the King George over three miles is what he needs to be doing first time out after a year off,” Henderson said.

Niceonefrankie was a surprise winner of the day’s big betting race, the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup. Venetia Williams’s runner set a remorseless gallop that forced several critical errors from those behind him.

The card closed with a first success in almost two years for Rock On Ruby, a former champion hurdler who seemed to appreciate an extra half-mile. Among those in the winner’s enclosure was Ruby Fry, the three-week-old daughter of the winning trainer, Harry.