Altior suffers more Champion Chase heartbreak after 11th-hour setback
Tomorrow’s Betway Champion Chase lost a significant player when, for the second year in succession, Altior, the two-time winner of the race, was ruled out at the 11th hour, this time after giving a couple of coughs returning from the gallops.
The meeting had already lost two big names, Energumene from today’s Arkle Trophy and Thyme Hill from the Stayers’ Hurdle, after they had training setbacks last week, but they do not come much bigger than Altior, the record-holder for 19 straight wins over obstacles, even if, at 11, he is in his dotage now.
Nicky Henderson announced yesterday that the one-time invincible 2018 and 2019 winner had returned an unsatisfactory scope which showed he was running a slight infection. Last year, he was kept from attempting a third Champion Chase after a splint problem failed to respond to treatment.
“It’s very upsetting,” said Henderson. “At least he told us, which is something. We’ve got the figures back from the laboratory and they tell their own tale.
“Fortunately, he had the good sense to give a couple of coughs coming in from exercise and the vets were here scoping. You could see it there, and now we have the figures from the lab which confirm he is running a bacterial infection.”
It leaves 10 horses, headed by the Willie Mullins-trained favourite Chacun Pour Soi, regarded by many as the banker of the meeting, to go forward to the Champion Chase.
For the second day running, small fields are a theme in the novice races, with just seven declared for the Ballymore Hurdle and half a dozen for the Brown Advisory Chase.