Fry opts for Clarence House test for Gidleigh Park

Gidleigh Park will return to Ascot for the BetMGM Clarence House Chase after connections elected to bypass this weekend’s Coral Silviniaco Conti Chase at Kempton.

A Grade Two winner over hurdles and fences, Harry Fry’s eight-year-old finished second to Jango Baie on his first start of this season in the 1965 Chase at Ascot over two miles and five furlongs in November.

Fry feels he ran his stable star in the wrong race that day and is keen to drop him back in trip but up in class for Ascot’s Grade One feature on Saturday week.

“We’re very much all systems go for the Clarence House, all being well,” he said.

“We looked at the ground at Kempton over Christmas and we haven’t had any rain since then. There has been some frost and the weather looks like changing at the end of the week, but we just felt we’d wait and take him back to Ascot.

“If I’d run him in the right race in the first place in November, in the Hurst Park (Handicap Chase), I have no doubt he’d have won that well, over the course and distance of the Clarence House. If he had won that we wouldn’t be having any second thoughts about running in the Clarence House or not.

“Obviously it’s going to be a step up against proper Grade One horses, but I think he deserves to take his chance.

“The entries for the Champion Chase and the Ryanair close tomorrow (Tuesday), so we’ll put him in both and what happens on his next start will help guide our targets for the spring.”

In Gidleigh Park’s absence, just four entries have been made for the Grade Two Silviniaco Conti Chase at Kempton on Saturday, with Alan King’s stable stalwart Edwardstone joined by Dan Skelton’s Boombawn, the Paul Nicholls-trained Kalif du Berlais and Master Chewy, trained by the father-son partnership of Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies.