Gordon Elliott hopes enough ground will be cleared at Down Royal for Gerri Colombe to make his seasonal reappearance in the Ladbrokes Champion Chase on Saturday.
Elliott spoke to Sporting Life about a stable Tour that will be available on Sunday and said of last year’s winner: “He’s in very good form, he’s done well here.” [at Navan] after the race on Wednesday. We’ve spoken to them at Down Royal and if the ground doesn’t give way we won’t stand. We gave them 10 or 12 days notice so they could get the watering can out and make sure the ground was safe for all of these horses. As much as we love visiting these racecourses, it will be a disappointment if they don’t provide the necessary ground. If it’s not true, we won’t take any chances.”
Gerri Colombe, a three-time Grade 1 winner as a novice chaser, showed good attitude on his first start in open company to win last season’s Champion Chase (repeat below), and then found only Galopin des Champs too strong in the Savills Chase and Cheltenham Gold Cup. He took advantage of Galopin des Champs’ absence to win the bowl at Aintree in his final start of the season.
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Elliott hopes Gerri Colombe can do even more this season and said: “He’s come on strong, I think he’s definitely a stronger horse. He needs to improve by four or five lengths to beat Galopin des Champs, but he had a good runback. “I was there last year and it’s off to Cheltenham again.
Elliott is responsible for six of the nine entries for the Champion Chase, including last season’s Grand National runner-up Delta Work.
Delta Work won the Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2022 and 2023 and was a star performer in the race last season until it was canceled due to waterlogging. However, he will face a more difficult task in this year’s race as the race will be run as a handicap due to changes to the festival program.
Elliott said: “There are a lot of changes at Cheltenham which don’t surprise me and which could be the right thing for various reasons, but I think converting cross country into a handicap is very disappointing. This race has really become a unified race.” I loved watching and this year it should feature Minella Indo, Galvin and Delta Work, all Grade 1 winners.
“For Delta Work, all systems will go back to English National, but which route we will take I don’t know.”
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