The 2015 Cheltenham Festival Gold Cup winner Coneygree is being set for yet another return to racing at Down Royal in Ireland for the JNWine.com Champion Chase on 3rd November.
The Injury Plagued 11 year old has had an horrific time of things since that great win at the Cheltenham festival where he became the first novice to win the race in 41 years.
Coneygree last year was looking set to pose a serious threat on the chasing division but for connections it was never to be, when he was pulled up on his first run of the season at Wetherby in the Charlie Hall Chase where he suffered an Over Reach jumping over one of the fences.
He came back at the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury just months later and again his season was cut short with another over reach problem that was later suspected to be a wind problem.
With the look ahead to this season, at the start of the year to try and get the horse in tip top condition he again had a dreadful set back when breaking his tibia which was set to rule him out for the whole campaign.
However, despite this first statement the 2015 Cheltenham winner is set to return for another season at Down Royal with trainer Mark Bradstock keen to give this superstar one more try, starting in the Champion Chase in Ireland.
(Credit Racing UK)
Coneygree's trainers wife Sara Bradstock said: “Coneygree is in good form and there’s a few different approaches we’re taking to try and keep him sound.
"Everything is going well at the moment anyway, so fingers crossed it stays that way.
"When they’ve had a stress fracture like he did you can’t completely let them down. You have to be a bit careful, but he went out in the field for two weeks and he’s now back in fast work.
"I think we’re probably going to start him off going right-handed, to take some pressure off his left-hind leg.
“We could look at Down Royal, or there’s the open handicap at Ascot on the same day – the Sodexo Gold Cup.
“The only thing is you’d probably need a lot of rain to be running him in England, which is why we’re thinking Down Royal might be more suitable.
“If he goes lame again then we’ll retire him, but everything is going well at the moment, so fingers crossed it stays that way.”