Lawes considering the next step for Challow runner-up Klimt Madrik

Toby Lawes is weighing up his options with Klimt Madrik after his gallant second in the Challow Hurdle at Newbury.

The six-year-old broke his maiden in a novice hurdle at the Berkshire track in November before returning to chase home No Drama This End in the Grade One event.

Klimt Madrik holds an entry in the Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown’s Dublin Racing Festival but Lawes will also keep his options open at the Cheltenham Festival with the Albert Bartlett a possible target.

Lawes said: “It’s not definite we’d go there (Leopardstown). We thought it would be sensible to pop in an entry. Obviously there’s that race on Cheltenham Trials day.

“The weather’s been increasingly difficult to predict. We wouldn’t want it to come up good ground and run him round there, so we’re just hedging our bets really. I think it would be quite an interesting thing to do and I think he’s definitely earned the right to be in a race like that.

“We’ve got a couple of three-mile options coming up in the next three or four weeks as well which we would consider but I think if the right option came up at two and a half to two-six, I think at this stage we would be slightly edging towards that.

“The next race agenda is probably going to test different skills, whether that is going round a Cheltenham, you know with those undulations, a slightly sharper test or even somewhere like Leopardstown.

“There’s not the exact race after the Challow to go for so we are going to have to test something a little bit different. I was delighted with the way he jumped round there, measuring his obstacles beautifully, whereas the time he won he still looked quite big and green and he looked a lot more polished last time. He’s only improving really and I think he’s ready to face a different kind of test.

“I think we probably will put the initial entries in (for Cheltenham Festival) and then we’ll sort of play it by ear. We’ll have to put those entries in before we run again. I suspect we’ll put in the two and a half and the three miles in the Albert Bartlett and see how we go.

“He might turn around and say to us at this stage he’s a bit big and unfurnished to get round Cheltenham appropriately, but I think it would probably be OK.

“We’ll leave those options open for sure and if he earns his right to go there, great, and if something doesn’t quite pan out on his next run, we can always come back and pop him in another novice to get another win to his name and then we can see how things develop in the spring and either Aintree or Punchestown, ground dependent.”