COUNTER CLAIM
DE RASHER COUNTER will test his Cheltenham Gold Cup credentials in the Cotswold Chase at the home of jump racing next month.
The Emma Lavelle-trained seven-year-old put up a personal best with a length-and-a-half victory in the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury in November. The British Horseracing Authority handicapper raised De Rasher Counter 11lb to a new rating of 160 – and Lavelle is keen to give the son of Yeats a chance to show he belongs in the line-up for the Magners-sponsored Gold Cup at the National Hunt Festival on March 13. “I’ve been really happy with him since Newbury,” Wiltshire-based Lavelle said yesterday. “I haven’t worked him yet, but he’s cantered every day and seems in really good form. “The plan is the Cotswold
Chase at Cheltenham, so we’ll get Christmas out of the way and then step up his work early in the New Year.
“He’s rated 160 now, and the Cotswold Chase is the obvious target, as it will tell us whether he is just a very good handicapper, or whether he could potentially be up to running in a Gold Cup.”
JP McManus has purchased Joseph O’Brien’s Triumph Hurdle hope Cerberus.
The son of Iffraaj earned a 12-1 quote for the juvenile title after carrying the colours of the Good Counsellors Syndicate – comprising past pupils of the Good Counsel College in New Ross including Ireland rugby union international Tadhg Furlong – to victory at Grade 3 level at Fairyhouse at the start of the month.
“Business is business,” said Aidan O’Brien, the trainer’s father and college deputy principal.