Cheltenham Festival winner O'Faolains Boy will aim to get his career back on track at Newbury on Wednesday.
Cheltenham Festival winner O'Faolains Boy will aim to get his career back on track at Newbury on Wednesday.
A narrow winner of the RSA Chase at Prestbury Park in March of last year, the Rebecca Curtis-trained eight-year-old spent 19 months on the sidelines after suffering injury at Aintree the following month and was pulled up with a circuit to go on his long-awaited return at Ascot.
Curtis subsequently discovered a feed issue was to blame for a disappointing November for the yard, but feels the problem has now been rectified ahead of O'Faolains Boy's second start of the campaign in Newbury's David Martin Graduation Chase.
"He's going to go to Newbury on Wednesday for the graduation chase there," said Curtis.
"He seems in very good form and I'd be expecting a good run from him."
The Newport-based trainer also had news of the imposing Beast Of Burden.
The six-year-old looked like being a high-class recruit to the novice chasing ranks this season, but fell when looking likely to score on his debut over fences at Chepstow in October and came to grief once more and suffered a broken a blood vessel at the Hennessy meeting.
Curtis said: " I don't think the problem we had with the hay was necessarily the problem, but it won't have helped.
"He burst a blood vessel at Newbury and we're going to get his palate fired to see if that stops the bleeding."