Gold Cup Winning Duo A Plus Tard & Minella Indo Both To Head Straight To Cheltenham

Henry De Bromhead's star Gold Cup winning duo of A Plus Tard and Minella Indo are likely not to be seen again this season until they both bid to claim a second win in the Cheltenham Festival feature in March.

Both horses knows what it takes to win a Gold Cup at the Cheltenham festival with Minella Indo doing so in 2021 under a great ride by Jack Kennedy and then last year having been backed into favouritism, A Plus Tard bolted up under Rachael Blackmore.

Henry De Bromhead is looking to make it a hat-trick of wins with these superstars and having both only been seen once each this season, they will both head straight to the Cheltenham festival.

A Plus Tard was looking to land back to back Grade One Betfair Chases on his seasonal debut this term but having never been right all the way round he was pulled up.

(Credit ATR) The gelding is fully recovered now with De Bromhead saying:“He seems good. We gave him a full check over and everything seems fine, his joint is good again. It was just a bang.

“We are sort of starting afresh and aiming for March.“I think we go straight there, we’ve sort of made that decision now and that’s it.

“He needs to go left-handed and the Irish Gold Cup was our only option really. We’re well able to get him spot on for the day and we’ll just aim for that.”

Minella Indo on the other hand made a superb seasonal debut, showing the fire was still burning for the 10 year old when seeing off Stattler on New Year's Day at Tramore in a Grade Three that has been used a pathway to the festival in the past by other horses.

De Bromhead added: “He seems great, I’m delighted with him. He’s in really good form and we’ll go straight to the Gold Cup with him.

“I was delighted to see him back and everyone saw the reception he got, and we got. It was incredible. It was an emotional day, a really good day.”