Dan Skelton’s long odds-on favorite Kadastral was briefly rocked before eventually recording a cozy 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 hurdles debut at Chepstow in early November.
With that experience under his belt he was the 2-9 favorite to go one step further – but those with tight odds might have become a little nervous approaching the penultimate, with Legal Weapon a persistent challenger before eventually going down by two lengths.
Kadastral was rated 33-1 for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle Skelton won with The New Lion earlier this year, but the Lodge Hill handler plans to protect his exciting prospect ahead of bigger days expected over fences later in his career.
He said: “He’s a beautiful horse and reputation-wise, form-wise and gambling-wise it was his race to lose and there wasn’t much to gain, but Harry (Skelton) got him third and fourth and taught him something today.
“He is a very talented horse. Last year we felt the improvement from run one to run two and we saw 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 is more likely to be a horse for Aintree.
“That’s not because he’s not Cheltenham standard, I think he is, but he’s a big, fairly narrow horse, and I think it’s right to be careful as a novice hurdler with ambitions to become a really good chaser.
“I’m not going to ask him questions and find out what he can’t do. I’d rather just put him in the right races and make him as good as he can be.”
He continued: “There is no doubt that he is a very nice horse and you can sometimes see that some can ride over a fence considerably better and this horse certainly falls into that category.
“If we are going to win a graded race we think it will be at Cheltenham and we like him.”
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