Nicky Henderson has a plethora of thrilling younger horses heading to the Cheltenham Pageant however he named a handicap prospect who could not even make the reduce as his “secret weapon” on the four-day assembly subsequent month.

The Seven Barrows coach spoke significantly extremely of Doddiethegreat, who’s a 12-1 probability for the Coral Cup on March 13 after ending fourth within the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury earlier this month, and Henderson is worked up about seeing him step up in journey.

Kenny Alexander’s eight-year-old is called after Scottish rugby star Doddie Weir, who raised consciousness and funding to sort out motor neurone illness earlier than dying from the sickness in November 2022.

Henderson must wait to see if he will get a spot within the race when the handicap weights are revealed subsequent Tuesday and mentioned: “He may not get during which actually is hurting me as he wouldn’t have gotten in final season. It’s actually unhappy as a result of he’s crying out for an additional half a mile.

“He ran an excellent race at Newbury and I went to mattress not worrying about Iberico Lord however wanting ahead to Doddie within the Coral. He’d be my secret weapon if he did get in.”

Triumph Hurdle favorite Sir Gino leads Henderson’s younger abilities whereas the unbeaten Jeriko Du Reponet is on monitor for the Supreme.

Henderson mentioned: “The Triumph is a troublesome race and Sir Gino is a giant, scopey horse who will bounce a fence, he’s not your typical Triumph horse. Generally you might need determined to attend one other 12 months with him however we’ve received this far, so we could as effectively preserve going.

“Jeriko Du Reponet has been in good kind. I feel the two-miler [Supreme] goes to be the new one, however I simply want to influence Ronnie Bartlett [owner of Ballyburn] to run his over two and a half as a result of he promised me he would at Christmas, however they appear to have modified their minds which may be very inconvenient. I’m positive Ronnie has the final say!”

Photograph: Jonbon having a education session

Courtesy of Racing Publish