William Munny looks to losing battle to make Cheltenham

Barry Connell is losing his battle to get William Munny back to full fitness in time to run in the Unibet Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in March.

Runner-up to Kopek Des Bordes in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Prestbury Park last season, the seven-year-old began this season has an intriguing contender for the two-mile crown, but he has not yet made it the track.

A setback ruled him out a planned return in last month’s Morgiana Hurdle at Punchestown and Connell’s hopes of getting back for Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting were also dashed.

The trainer had since been eyeing a possible pre-Cheltenham outing at the Dublin Racing Festival, but has now revealed the lingering injury could force him out of not only Leopardstown’s top-class meeting in early February but also a trip to Prestbury Park the following month.

“We’re struggling with him. He had a muscle tear in his hind quarters and it’s not healing as quickly as we would like,” Connell told the Press Association.

“We think we’re going to struggle to get him to Cheltenham. I don’t think we’re going to get a prep run into him. I don’t want to rule it out 100 per cent, but he hasn’t been under a saddle for three weeks and it would probably be a push to get him to Cheltenham.”

With State Man out for the season and Constitution Hill’s future up in the air after three falls in his last four races, William Munny was as short as 10-1 with Unibet for the Champion Hurdle, putting him fourth in their ante-post betting behind Sir Gino, Lossiemouth and The New Lion.

Connell added: “It’s frustrating because it looks an open division this year, but that’s what we’re dealing with and we should have a good chance of getting him back for Punchestown – it would be nice to get one run into him this year at open level.

“It’s a soft tissue injury and it will repair 100 per cent, it’s just the timing of it that is terrible because if you miss three or four weeks at this time of the year you’re set back so much that trying to get him back to where he needs to be is taking too long.

“I am erring on the side of being cautious by saying it’s unlikely we’re going to make Cheltenham. But we’ll make every effort to get him to Punchestown.”