Easysland to make Sandown debut for Jonjo O’Neill

Cross-country star has chase and hurdle options on Saturday.

Easysland will make his debut for Jonjo O’Neill at Sandown on Saturday before heading to the Cheltenham Festival in a bid to reclaim his Glenfarclas Chase crown.

The eight-year-old, previously trained in France by David Cottin, emerged as a cross-country specialist when winning a string of races in his homeland before making a successful first visit to Cheltenham in December 2019.

The following March he returned to the Cotswolds to take the cross-country event at the Festival – inflicting a 17-length defeat on dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll.

At last season’s Festival the form was reversed, however, with Tiger Roll claiming an 18-length success over Easysland in what was the latter horse’s most recent career start.

A first run for the O’Neill stable is planned for Sandown at the weekend, with the gelding holding entries for both the Virgin Bet Masters Handicap Chase and the Virgin Bet Heroes Handicap Hurdle.

“Jonjo will make up his mind a bit nearer the time, but the plan is to run him in one of the races on Saturday,” said Frank Berry, racing manager to owner JP McManus.

After his weekend outing connections hope to see Easysland return to Cheltenham before a potential tilt at the Grand National at Aintree in the spring.

Berry added: “We’ll get through Saturday’s race first and then hopefully he’ll be good to go to Cheltenham for the cross country.

“Jonjo is quite happy with him so we hope he’ll run a good race on Saturday and go on from there.

“The cross country is his main objective, we’ll see how we get on with that before the National afterwards.”

Easysland winning at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival
Easysland winning at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The Gentlewave gelding has been kept out of action since March 2021 due to injury setbacks but has recovered and regained fitness in the swimming pool at O’Neill’s Cotswolds stable.

“He has been here for about a month now and in that time he has done a fair bit of swimming,” the trainer said.

“He seems grand at the moment but it is a case of keeping the wheels on as he has been off the track since Cheltenham last year as he has had a few issues.

“If he comes out of this Saturday well, I’d imagine that the cross country at Cheltenham will be his goal. Whether he goes to the Grand National I don’t know, but he has the entry.”

Easysland is one of three National entrants for O’Neill, with last season’s favourite Cloth Cap and Midlands National winner Time To Get Up also in contention.

Cloth Cap is on course to return to Aintree
Cloth Cap is on course to return to Aintree (Alan Crowhurst/PA)

“He was favourite for the race last year but unfortunately his wind gave up on him,” O’Neill said of Cloth Cap.

“Hopefully we have now got that fixed and we will go back to Aintree with him.

“It will be the same as last year for him in that he will either go to Doncaster (Grimthorpe Chase) or to the race he won at Kelso (Premier Chase) first.

“He does need genuine good ground though, otherwise he will have no chance.”

Time To Get Up, who is also owned by McManus, will head to Haydock’s Grand National trial on February 19 and is then likely to stand his ground for the big race itself – despite not jumping fluently over the National fences in the Grand Sefton in November.

“He is usually a good jumper but he didn’t jump well around Aintree in the Grand Sefton,” said O’Neill.

“He had a few issues and hopefully we have put them right, so we will see how we get on in the Grand National Trial.

“We have to give him a second chance to have a go over the fences and then we can work out if they are not right for him.”

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