Rince Ri is ruled out of Pillar Chase

Lydia Hislop13 April 2012

Rince Ri will miss this Saturday's much-anticipated Pillar Property Chase at Cheltenham, trainer Ted Walsh revealed today.

But his absence detracts only slightly from an exciting Gold Cup dress rehearsal featuring leading contenders, See More Business and Cyfor Malta.

The Walsh-trained eight-year-old produced a career-best performance to win Leopardstown's prestigious Ericsson Chase last month on his sole start this season, beating Dorans Pride by two-and-a-half lengths.

That effort has now catapulted him to 8-1 clear third favourite for chasing's blue riband event on 15 March with some bookmakers, trading only behind emphatic King George VI Chase victor, First Gold, and 1999 Gold Cup hero, See More Business.

But Rince Ri - who unseated rider and trainer's son, Ruby, when in contention at the third last in the 2000 Gold Cup won by Looks Like Trouble - yesterday failed to pass a routine examination with a clean bill of health at his Kill Village yard in County Kildare.

"I scoped him on Sunday morning and it came up dirty. As a consequence, he will not go to Cheltenham this Saturday," said Walsh.

Meanwhile, connections are confident the great Istabraq can enter the record books with an unprecedented fourth success in the Smurfit Champion Hurdle at this year's Cheltenham Festival on 13 March after bouncing back to form yesterday.

The nine-year-old gelding put last month's blip - the first fall of his career - behind him with a fourth successive victory in Leopardstown's AIG Europe Champion Hurdle yesterday.

The champion sidestepped trouble when Moscow Flyer fell at the second last and then sauntered home from Mantles Prince by four-and-a-half lengths.

"He was awesome. He jumped brilliantly and was very sharp," said devoted pilot, Charlie Swan, after celebrating this latest win. "It proves the negative rumours about him last week were wrong.

"It is very realistic to hope he can win at the Festival again. I hope he goes there in as good form as this - he can definitely do it."

Trainer Aidan O'Brien believes pitching Istabraq's season solely at the Festival will pay off. "We have trained him very cautiously to peak at the right time, so hopefully he will go to Cheltenham with a big shout, provided we can keep him in one piece," he said.

In further Festival news from Ireland, Limestone Lad - who numbers among his prolific career triumphs a freak victory over Istabraq - will attempt to go one better than last year's second to Bacchanal in the Bonusprint Stayers' Hurdle, rather than tackle one of the chase contests.

Trainer James Bowe revealed the nine-year-old will revert to the smaller obstacles in the Bank of Ireland Hurdle at Naas this Saturday. Any chasing ambitions are on hold until after March.

Turf racing today hinges on an inspection at Wetherby.

Officials at the Yorkshire venue decided to make a second inspection after walking the track yesterday and James Sanderson, the racecourse manager, said: "The frost has virtually gone but we still have a a covering of snow. We should be all right as rain is forecast."

Tomorrow's scheduled meeting at Leicester was affected by an inch of snow yesterday but with the thaw continuing no inspection is planned.

There are no problems reported at Tuesday's Fontwell or Wolverhampton (all-weather) fixtures.

Prospects for the rest of the week may well depend on the amount of rain. Many courses will face problems with waterlogging if rainfall is significant.

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