Legal Right a horse plagued by lameness, can prove his high-class status by taking the major honours at Wincanton tomorrow.
The £25,000 Jim Ford Challenge Cup - one of the four televised races from the course in a Channel 4 double-header with Huntingdon - is the target for Jonjo O'Neill's enigmatic gelding, is entered in next month's Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup.
O'Neill makes no secret of the fact that Legal Right is lame every single morning he walks out of his stable, but that has not stopped the seven-year-old from gaining an impressive hat-trick of wins this season, highlighted by his success in the Tripleprint Gold Cup at Cheltenham before Christmas.
That victory was by 22 lengths from the classy Nordance Prince and was a decisive reminder of Legal Right's burgeoning talents.
Champion jockey Tony McCoy has been booked for the mount tomorrow when Legal Right will step up to an extended three miles for the first time.
Another impressive success will surely earn him a tilt at the Gold Cup rather than the Cathcart Chase, one of the Festival's lesser events, which connections are currently favouring.
The Grade 2 Axminster 100 Kingwell Hurdle, with £35,000 up for grabs, is very much a testing ground for Hors La Loi III, who comes over from France representing trainer Francois Doumen.
A top-class novice hurdler last season when trained by Martin Pipe, and a hugely impressive winner at the Cheltenham Festival, Hors La Loi has yet to strike form in two outings this term and, somewhat alarmingly, burst a blood vessel at Auteil on his latest start, three months ago.
Given time to recover, he could be a totally different horse tomorrow and certainly, if he is back to something like his best, he will make short work of this field. That said, he can not be recommended as a betting proposition.
Recent winner Upham Lord sneaks into the foot of the weights under his 6lb penalty in the Ilchester Handicap Hurdle and is napped to oblige again.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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