HENDO RAISES THE ’ANTE

EPATANTE will warm up for her fourth run in the Cheltenham Festival’s Champion Hurdle with a first appearance at Doncaster next Saturday.

Nicky Henderson was forced to look at other options for the 2020 Champion Hurdle heroine — Epatante (left) made the podium behind Honeysuckle in the past two renewals — after the frost claimed Haydock’s card on Saturday.

And the master of Seven Barrows will give JP Mcmanus’s nine-year-old, a 16-1 chance for this year’s race, her Festival prep run in the Grade 2 Yorkshire Rose

Mares’ Hurdle. “If Plan A didn’t work out, then I knew I always had a Plan B,” said Henderson (below), who also trains 1-4 Champion Hurdle hotpot Constitution Hill.

“In fact, it was almost Plan A because the ground there hardly ever gets heavy — it’s some of the best ground around.

“It’s a £50,000 race. She’ll have to carry a Grade 1 penalty but plenty of them will have a penalty of some sort.

“She had a wonderful year last year — she won three Grade 1 races — and she’s been in very good form. She has worked beautifully.”

FAKIR D’OUDAIRIES profited from the last-fence fall of Haut En Couleurs to better last year’s second placing in the Grade 2 Horse & Jockey Hotel Chase at Thurles.

Joseph O’brien’s eightyear-old remains 8-1 for the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham on March 16.

Bookmakers left Allegorie De Vassy as the 6-4 market leader for the Mrs Paddy Power Mares’ Chase after the Willie Mullins trainee justified odds of 1-8 in the Grade 2 Coolmore N.H. Sires Mogul Irish EBF Mares Novice Chase.