Royale Pagaille connections to mull Cheltenham options

NO early decision will be made on the Cheltenham Festival target of impressive Peter Marsh Chase winner Royale Pagaille.

Despite a 16lb rise in the weights for a win at Kempton over Christmas, the Venetia Williams-trained seven-yearold won even easier at Haydock.

He holds four entries at the Festival in the National Hunt Chase, the Marsh Novices’ Chase, the Festival Novices’ Chase (formerly the RSA) and the Gold Cup itself.

Muddying the waters further is the Willie Mullins-trained Monkfish, who is also owned by Susannah Ricci and a hot favourite for the Festival Novices’ Chase.

“There’s no bad news to report,” said Joe Chambers, racing manager for the owner, on Racing TV’s Luck On Sunday.

“I think it would have been great if the two Sams (Sam’s Adventure and Sam Brown) had been able to complete the course and turn up as we’d have learned an awful lot more than we actually have.

“We put him in the Gold Cup opportunistically at the time because it was closing when the travel ban was coming in and we just thought for the sake of the initial entry fee we could always take him out at the next forfeit stage on February 9 if his next run didn’t go according to plan.

“But I guess we’ll be leaving him in it, and we’ll be leaving him in the novice races as well.

“We’ll see what the handicapper says on Tuesday as to what the substance of the form is. We thought we got fairly hammered after Kempton as he went up not once but twice.”

The least likely option at this stage for Royale Pagaille would appear to be the Festival Novices’ Chase, should Monkfish run.

“All being well should Monkfish turn up are we likely to run two in that race? Probably not as I think Susannah has had 88 runners at Cheltenham and 67 have been sole representatives so it’s not really our MO to run two in the same race,” said Chambers.