Havingotascoobydo

Havingotascoobydo was put up here on a couple of occasions last season, firstly when acquitting himself well in finishing second to Tanks For That in a two-mile handicap chase at Cheltenham’s Paddy Power meeting on just his fourth run over fences, and secondly when reverting to hurdles at Sandown in early January when he made his ground from the back really quickly and ultimately only finding Ciceron narrowly too good.

He hadn’t run since then, so Saturday’s reappearance at Cheltenham was his first run for over 10 months, and it was a really encouraging one in the circumstances. He raced wide throughout, presumably to give him plenty of room at his fences on his first chase since New Year’s Day, but it obviously meant that he covered extra ground. He did travel strongly and got in among the fore-runners coming down the hill, moving smoothly through into fourth place over the third last fence, but he could never get closer than that. The front three were the first three throughout, it was clearly a big advantage to race up with the pace, and Havingotascoobydo faded, probably due to a combination of racing wide, making up ground quite quickly and not having run for a while. He jumped the second last untidily and he weakened up the hill, but he shaped a lot better than his final finishing position of 10th suggests.

He had been quite weak in the market, so he can be expected to come on with this run under his belt. There is still room for him to brush up on his jumping, but the way he travelled for much of this contest suggests he is still nicely treated. He has actually been dropped 2lb for this to a mark of 135, he is still only seven, and he may be a fair bit better than that mark.

20th October 2012

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