Options open for versatile Lil Rockerfeller

King eight-year-old could go to Sandown.

Neil King is weighing up chase and hurdle options for stable stalwart Lil Rockerfeller this term.

The eight-year-old won his first three starts over fences last season, but after unseating his rider at Cheltenham in December, he had one more chase outing before King finished the season in the hurdling sphere.

Lil Rockerfeller was last seen finishing nine lengths behind Ballyoptic in a decent event at Chepstow.

King is now planning another run over fences before finalising plans for the year.

He said: “We are hoping to go to Sandown with him a week on Sunday for the intermediate chase there. That is what we would like to do. We will be governed by ground as if it was bottomless, he wouldn’t run. After that we would decide if he stays chasing or goes hurdling.

“The realistic race he would have a chance of winning at the Cheltenham Festival is the Pertemps, so if we want to do that we need to go back over hurdles and get him qualified.

“He ran well at Chepstow and came up against a good horse in Ballyoptic. He won his first three over fences last year and he then had a couple of minor jumping errors which any novice can have, but it seemed the right decision to go back over hurdles.

“This year he has been fit from Goodwood, but the only race I could run him in was the one at Southwell. I wouldn’t normally take him to something like that and he ended up being run off his feet there.

“The good thing there though was that he learnt a lot about his jumping. He was off the bridle from the word go, but his jumping was good on the whole.

“At Chepstow, he was back on a big, galloping track and jumped fine, he was just beaten by a better horse.”

King is also starting to plot a course with Brandon Castle, who won three on the bounce before an unsuccessful Festival run.

The trainer added: “He is entered in the Greatwood and he will also have an entry in the Michaelmas Hurdle at Huntingdon the Tuesday before and we will decide later on which one we decide to go for. We do like the idea of the Greatwood. He is in great form at home.

“We went to Cheltenham for the Supreme, but it was a step too far on bottomless ground and then he probably just had a long enough season when he went back to Plumpton.

“He had been on the go for Archie Watson before coming to us.”

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