Trainer Jamie Snowden is confident of Wendigo‘s hopes in the Cheltenham Festival‘s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase, and “wouldn’t be swapping” him in the race.
Wendigo endured a troubled passage on his first Cheltenham Festival visit last season. Snowden’s charge ultimately finished fifth in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle having stumbled and almost unseated Gavin Sheehan on the turn for home.
That experience has evidently held Wendigo in good stead, however. This season, he has won two of his four chases, including the Grade 2 Berkshire Novices’ Chase at Newbury.
That victory preceded a third-placed effort at Kempton in Grade 1 company before a facile victory lowered in class at Ayr. All told, he is the shortest-priced British candidate to win the top level novice chase on Cheltenham’s Wednesday.
Snowden: “We learned from Kempton”
Wendigo’s run in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase was respectable, but may not have screamed Cheltenham winner. Nevertheless, lessons have apparently been learned, with the Ayr victory in between providing a confidence boost.
“All I can say is that our lad’s had a nice experience, he jumped round and three miles on a left-handed track on slightly softer ground is just what he wanted,” Snowden told the Press Association, via Racing TV. “He found Kempton a bit sharp, the ground was a bit quick that day and I think we’re better on a left-handed track.
“We learned from Kempton. We went to Kempton half thinking that might happen, but if we were thinking about the King George next year we wanted to find out how he handled it as a novice as opposed to waiting until next year.”
So the King George may not be on the agenda, but Cheltenham has been at the heart of Snowden’s thinking. Thus, with a three month gap between the Kauto Star and Brown Advisory, an intermediate run was required. The contest at Ayr, though against two distinctly inferior rivals, may have blown away the cobwebs sufficiently.
“He didn’t have to show anything up at Ayr, but it’s a long time between Kempton and Cheltenham, we wanted to get a run into him and it was the only race he could run in.
“I wouldn’t be swapping our chap and it’s super exciting. We’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of Festival winners, but those were probably longer prices, so to go there with a fairly short-priced horse for it is really exciting.”