Skelton convinced Kadastral will make his name over fences

Dan Skelton’s long odds-on favourite Kadastral was given a fright before ultimately recording a cosy success in the Best Odds Guaranteed Still At BetVictor Maiden Hurdle at Newbury.

Winner of a very valuable bumper at the track in March, he was put in his place by Sober Glory on his hurdling debut at Chepstow in early November.

With that experience under his belt, he was the 2-9 favourite to go one better – but those who took cramped odds might have been getting a little jittery approaching the second-last, with Legal Weapon a persistent challenger before eventually going down by two lengths.

Kadastral was given a 33-1 quote for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle Skelton won with The New Lion earlier this year, but the Lodge Hill handler is minded to protect his exciting prospect ahead of bigger days anticipated over fences later in his career.

He said: “He’s a lovely horse and on reputation, on form and betting it was his race to lose and there wasn’t too much to gain, but Harry (Skelton) got him there third and fourth down the rail and taught him something today.

“He’s a very talented horse, we felt the improvement last year from run one to run two and we’ve seen that same improvement today as a hurdler.

“I’ll just look after him now and I don’t think you’ll see him at Cheltenham, he’s more likely to be a horse for Aintree.

“That’s not because he is not Cheltenham standard, I feel he is, but he’s a tall, quite a fraction narrow horse, and I think the right thing to do is tread carefully as a novice hurdler with the ambition to become a really good chaser.

“I’m not going to go asking him questions and find out what he can’t do, I’d rather just put him in the right races and make him the best he can be.”

He went on: “There is no doubt he’s a very nice horse and you can just see sometimes that some might be significantly better over a fence and this one is definitely in that category.

“If we are going to win a graded race, we think that will be at Cheltenham and we like him.”