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Jewson Novices’ Chase is Added to Cheltenham Festival Card
07/10/10

Cheltenham Racecourse has announced that there will be a new race at The Festival in March 2011, taking the total number of races at the meeting to 27.

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The new event is the Grade 2 Nigel Twiston-Davies some time ago to send horses down for a schooling session over the new obstacle. So at 6am on Monday morning I came down and found it foggy but we decided to crack on.

“They jumped the plain fence and ditch on the back straight and came down the hill over the third last. They were going very fast and seven horses came around the corner - Paddy Brennan, Carl Llewellyn, David England, Sam Waley-Cohen and Sam Twiston-Davies were among those riding - and the bend rode beautifully and they jumped the fence.

“We were happy but Nigel’s gang wanted to do it again. So they went back up the hill to the third last and one of the senior jockeys who is now retired said they went off with their tails on fire.

“We could hear them coming and the first horse hit the fence pretty hard and fell and brought down two others. So we had three jockeys and horses on the deck - fortunately they all got up and were fine and they made some positive remarks about what we had done.”

Brennan said: “The ground has never been better and the new fence could not be in a better place. You will still get fallers as it is the second last but they won’t be so severe.”

Sam Waley-Cohen said: “The fence is beautifully presented and I look forward to coming down to it on Long Run.”

Carl Llewellyn said: “I think the fence will be a great improvement - it rides nicely off the bend with plenty of room between the two fences. It will be safer all round.”

Watering is going on for Cheltenham’s first meeting of the season, The Showcase on Friday and Saturday, October 15 & 16 - the going is currently good, good to firm in places and Claisse aims to have it slightly on the easy side of good by the first day.