Cross heading to Kelso for Festival prep race
Donald McCain's high-class hurdler Peddlers Cross looks set to make his latest attempt at having an outing before bidding for the Stan James Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival next month, when heading up to the Scottish border country to bid for the Victor Chandler Morebattle Hurdle next Thursday, writes Elliot Slater.
The six-year-old met with a minor setback that ruled him out of competing at either Sandown or Ffos Las earlier this month, having previously been denied a run in the Champion Hurdle Trial at Haydock when that meeting was abandoned due to frost. McCain is very keen to get an outing into the unbeaten Oscar gelding who will look to extend his winning sequence to seven with what connections hope will be an incident-free trial at Kelso.
Peddlers Cross, a top priced 6/1 for Champion Hurdle glory, although he is as short as 9/2 in the Cheltenham odds with some firms, won last year's Grade 1 Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival (beating Reve de Sivola), and then completed a top-flight double when following up at the Aintree Festival a few weeks later. Seen only once so far this term, the potential star hurdler travelled down to Newbury for the re-routed Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle and duly handed out a beating to the smart Starluck and the reigning champion hurdler and current big race favourite, Binocular. The Gold Cup betting may be grabbing all the headlines, but this is shaping up to be just as interesting a race.
McCain has maintained from very early on that Peddlers Cross is a special horse and everything he has done so far suggests that the Cheshire-based handler knows exactly what he is talking about. There will however be plenty of nerves before the Morebattle Hurdle as the trainer and his regular jockey Jason Maguire can't afford any last minutes slip-up's that could wreck their star performer's chance of claiming the hurdles crown on March 15.
