Good ground key to Hewick’s Gold Cup hopes
Hanlon wants the sun to shine ahead of Festival highlight.
John ‘Shark’ Hanlon is praying for good ground ahead of next month’s Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, as his King George hero Hewick prepares to take on defending champion Galopin Des Champs. Hewick took a crashing fall two out in his first taste of the Gold Cup last year, with Galopin Des Champs carrying on up the hill for a memorably impressive victory. Willie Mullins’ charge has since looked imperious when winning at Leopardstown this season, firstly in the Savills Chase at Christmas and then when bettering chief blue riband rival Fastorslow for his second Irish Gold Cup during the Dublin Racing Festival. However, Hewick has also gone from strength to strength and following a career best to win the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day, Hanlon is now keen to try to exploit a possible chink in Galopin Des Champ’s armour on a sounder surface at Prestbury Park.He said: “It is beginning to get exciting times and I love to see that sun coming out, which I want to see in England more at the minute than I want to see over here. “The weather is what’s most important to him. It was soft ground last year and I want that soft ground out of there this year. “Galopin Des Champs is a very good horse and he’s won on soft ground a couple of times this year and has looked very good on it. “But I would love to meet him on good ground. Maybe if he is as good then he will win, but I just think on proper good ground, he might not be as good as he is on soft and heavy ground. “The horse is in really good form and he came out of the King George very well. He will probably go and do a bit of work now in Naas on Wednesday in a schooling bumper and that’s the route we went down before the King George.”
🚀 INCREDIBLE!!!!!
Hewick comes from the clouds in a dramatic finish G1 King George VI Chase to give @jhanlonracing & Gavin Sheehan victory in the @kemptonparkrace feature pic.twitter.com/J0UoJh6Eeu — Racing TV (@RacingTV) December 26, 2023
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