Emma Lavelle has decided to bring the curtain down on Ma Shantou’s season after failing to gain an answer for his disappointing Stayers’ Hurdle effort. The Shantou gelding began the season off a mark of 129, convincingly winning a Cheltenham Handicap. Despite bombing out at Haydock, he bounced back to form again at Cheltenham.
He marked himself as a graded level stayer when bolting up in the Cleeve Hurdle. After emulating connections’ Paisley Park there, he failed to confirm he was of a similar ilk when disappointing at the festival.
While Lavelle remains upbeat about his ability, the lack of answers to his performance has led to her pulling up stumps this season.
Lavelle told Racing TV: “ I think we can put a line through it but I’m just not sure. We probably won’t know until next season now. He seemed in great order going into the race. But he has either run brilliantly or thrown in a not so good run. So maybe it was the case it was time for the not so good run.
“He’s come out of the race fresh as paint,” continued Lavelle. “I’m really happy with him, he seems fine afterwards. But there are so many questions we don’t have an answer for I guess.
“We have a horse to go to war with next season” – Emma Lavelle
Winning three races at Cheltenham in the same season is no mean feat. One defeat doesn’t make you a bad horse overnight, though Lavelle is evidently left pondering by the performance.
“You can tie yourself in knots trying to figure out what happened. But what I do know is we have a horse to go back to war with next season,” remarked Lavelle.
Plenty trainers would chance their arm to redeem themselves at Aintree, but Lavelle doesn’t see the benefit. The Paisley Park route – beginning in the Long Distance Hurdle – appears likely, while going novice chasing is also on the agenda.
“I don’t really see him as an Aintree horse. When he came back from Cheltenham I thought he looked light enough,” added Lavelle. “We’ll run him next in the Long Distance Hurdle at Newbury. If that goes well we’ll stay over hurdles and if not we may have a look at novice chasing. My plan in the next week or so is to school him over fences. We’ll have that in the bag then so we can plot a route after we come back next season.”
Ma Shantou is evidently a horse with plenty of ability, and given Lavelle brought back Paisley Park from multiple poor efforts to win at the top level, the son of Shantou shouldn’t be written off next season.