Penna Rossa given Finale task

Juvenile caused a shock at Sandown.

Camilla Poulton is relishing the prospect of potentially taking on some big names when Penna Rossa tackles the Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle at Chepstow later this month.

The son of Belardo showed plenty of improvement on his second start over hurdles to cause a 28-1 shock at Sandown earlier this month, but Poulton believes she has a special operator on her hands and is keen to get a gauge of his level by running in the December 27 Grade Two.

However, with the recent abandonments of key juvenile contests at both Cheltenham and Doncaster, the Lewes-based handler is expecting to have to take on a much stronger cast in South Wales than originally envisaged.

“Chepstow is on the cards weather permitting and if he is OK,” said Poulton.

“He’s come back all right after the race, but obviously the ground was quite deep at Sandown so he has come back with a few grazes from the soil. Apart from that he came back safe and sound and is as good as anything and if all that clears up, Chepstow is where we are heading.

“Obviously now with Cheltenham and Doncaster being off there could be a few more entries I would think. Not that we were hoping for a quiet race, but we picked Chepstow thinking people may have run at Cheltenham or Doncaster and I think it might be a bit crowded now at Chepstow the way the weather is going.”

She went on: “We’ve got to mix it with the big boys at some point to see where we are really and at home we always thought we had something special as soon as we jumped him – he was like a different horse once he had a hurdle in front of him. So we knew we had something quite nice, but we don’t know how nice until we do get in with the big boys.

“We’re hoping (he’ll hold his own) and he has definitely improved again like they all do. Sandown was just his second race in public over jumps. The thing with him is he does jump and at Sandown I thought it was his jumping that won him the race.”

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