Waiting Patiently To Skip Cheltenham Festival In Favour Of Aintree

The Ruth Jefferson trained Waiting Patiently will not be seen at this year's Cheltenham festival and will instead skip the meeting in favour of heading to Aintree for the Grand National festival.

The son of Flemensfirth has only been seen a few times over the last few years, being patiently waited on by her trainer, but this season has been twice in quick concession, in very differing events.

The 10 year old made his seasonal debut in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, going on to do his best work late on over Christmas to finish a good second behind Frodon.

That run suggested that he would be staying over the long trips, but in January he was supplemented late for the Grade One Clarence House Chase over two miles at Ascot.

Although it came as a shock Waiting Patiently has been not shy of running over that trip and had previous of performing well at the Berkshire track winning the Ascot Chase back in 2019.

However, on the day he could only finish a tame third of eight with the leader First Flow going on to dominate the contest and that has seemingly made up the decision for the trainer to not send him straight into the Cheltenham festival.

Having already been taken out of the Queen Mother Champion Chase, Waiting Patiently retained the option of running him in either the Ryanair Chase or the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but he has now been taken out of those races aswell.

(Credit ATR) Jefferson said: “I took him out of the Queen Mother ages ago and I’ve now taken him out of the Ryanair and the Gold Cup.

“Thinking about it, we felt the King George wasn’t the fastest run three-mile race in the world, so maybe the Gold Cup wasn’t the right option.

“And after his last race, he was going to need a little bit of veterinary attention, so we thought we’d leave him for Aintree.

“He’s not had an issue as such, but the longer between his Ascot run and his next run the better.”