Colm Murphy’s classy Quito De La Roque, a lively outsider for the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March and an impressive winner of the Grade 1 JNwine.com Chase at Down Royal on Saturday, has a choice of engagements for his next outing which will almost certainly be before the turn of the year, writes Elliot Slater.
Connections will bide their time before deciding whether the upwardly mobile seven-year-old will take in the John Durkan Memorial Chase at the start of next month or wait until the big Leopardstown Christmas fixture to tackle the Grade 1 Lexus Chase. Having reportedly come out of the Down Royal contest in top form Murphy is excitedly looking forward to taking on more big names after his charge put reigning champion chaser Sizing Europe to the sword, running on well after the last on Saturday to score by a length-and-a-quarter. Anyone looking at the ante-post Cheltenham Gold Cup betting will be keeping a close eye on his progress.
Quito De la Roque has now strung together a sequence of five consecutive victories and is unbeaten in 2011, including Grade 2 successes at Naas and Navan during the winter prior to arriving at Aintree in April where he produced a fine display to beat recent impressive Carlisle scorer Sarando by a neck in the Grade 2 John Smith’s Mildmay Novices’ Chase. Travelling on to the Punchestown Festival in early May the gelded son of Saint Des Saints then produced his best ever performance in slamming the smart Western Charmer by no less than 14-lengths to land the Group 1 Growise Champion Novice Chase before completing back-to-back top level successes with his recent win at Down Royal.
Generally on offer at around 16/1 to rest the Cheltenham Gold Cup crown from the superb Long Run, it looks almost certain that Murphy’s new star will remain in action in Ireland until travelling across to Cheltenham to bid for the main event in mid-March.
