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2012 CHAMPION HURDLE winner Rock On Ruby, may head straight to Cheltenham for a tilt at the Arkle, with the bad weather continuing to keep Harry Fry’s stable star in his stable.
The nine-year-old has still only managed one run over fences this season, cruising to a bloodless victory at Plumpton last month. Last week, he missed an intended run at Doncaster and with no let up in the poor weather forecasted, Fry may be forced to send his charge straight to Cheltenham without a prep run.
“There probably is a chance now we could go straight to the Festival with the way the weather is. We seem to get a couple of dry days and then the heavens open again so nowhere really gets a chance to dry out,” Fry revealed in his latest blog for Stanjames.com.
“We’re running out of time to get that extra run in which we’d very much like to do but we’re not going to run him for the sake of it. He’s getting better and better each week and we’d rather do the work at home and keep taking a step forward than a big step back in very soft conditions.
“Noel (Fehily) has been in and schooled him this morning and he’s delighted with him. Every year he just seems to get better and better from January onwards. He’s thriving but the trouble is we can’t get away with his wind on the soft ground anymore so we don’t want to use up our lives on the bottomless ground and knock him backwards.
“The Arkle’s still the plan but then we obviously need Cheltenham to come up with good ground to be in with a chance. If it’s not good or half-decent ground then we can forget our chance. At that level we need to have decent ground with his wind.”
