• Leading Champion Hurdle fancy is ‘major doubt’ for March race
• Kempton confident that King George will beat weather
Hurricane Fly, one of the favourites for the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March, will miss his intended engagement at Leopardstown next week and is a major doubt for the rest of the season after suffering an injury to a ligament.
Willie Mullins’s five-year-old won three times at Grade One level as a novice last season and was a short-priced favourite for the Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham before being forced to miss the Festival after suffering a splint problem. Until yesterday’s news broke, he was 11-2 for the Champion Hurdle, just half a point behind the favourite, Zaynar.
“We weren’t happy with Hurricane Fly over the weekend and we were a lot less happy with him today,” Mullins told the Racing Post last night. “He has a sprained suspensory ligament and Leopardstown is definitely out of the question, and there also has to be a major doubt about him making the Champion Hurdle.”
A blizzard descended on Kempton Park as the runners were leaving the paddock for a handicap on the Flat yesterday evening, but track officials remain confident that the King George VI Chase will take place at the track as planned this weekend, when the temperature is forecast to rise to between 4C and 5C.
“The snow had turned to rain by the end of the card,” Brian Clifford, Kempton’s clerk of the course, said last night. “There’s frost forecast for the next couple of nights, but nothing like the severity of the last couple and the course is perfectly raceable at the moment, because it is covered up.
“We get three different forecasts here, one from the Met Office which also supplies Heathrow, one from the manufacturers of the covers, which is produced by John Kettley, and another one online. They all look favourable going forward, and it’s possible it could even get as high as 5C on Boxing Day, which for me is almost pleasantly mild. The pattern is ever-changing, but hopefully the latest forecasts are correct.”
Kauto Star is no better than 8-13 with the major bookmakers to win the King George for the fourth year in a row and his chance was given a strong endorsement yesterday by Tony McCoy, who appears to have little hope that his mount, Albertas Run, can finish in front of the favourite.
“As we all know, Kauto Star is going to win,” McCoy said. “He looks impossible to beat, but Albertas Run was a good second to him last year and hopefully that gives him a good chance of being in the money again. I can only see the weather upsetting Kauto Star. He’s an amazing horse to have achieved what he has.”
A total of 14 horses stood their ground for the King George at yesterday’s five‑day stage. Imperial Commander, who ran Kauto Star to a nose in the Betfair Chase at Haydock last time out, is the main danger according to the betting, while Madison Du Berlais is the only other entry at single-figure odds.
