Henderson not worried by Zaynar defeat

Nicky Henderson says Zaynar's shock defeat at Kelso on Thursday should be ignored.

The grey went to the Scottish track as favourite for next month's Champions Hurdle, but was pushed out to 8/1 for Cheltenham after a shock defeat at odds of 1/14.

Henderson though says he was just desperate to get a run into the horse before the Festival, and not too much should be read into the result.

He said: "If it was again under normal circumstances i wouldn't have run anything in that ground yesterday, but if he didn't run there it meant we had to go straight to Cheltenham and while we toyed with that idea we took the view that we needed the run."

While some punters may be writing off Zaynar after his shock defeat, Henderson believes without the run he'd have had no chance of victory at Cheltenham.

"All I can say is that somebody said to me well you probably wish that you hadn't run him but the answer is I'm glad I did because he needed it badly and if he'd gone to Cheltenham without that race he definitely wouldn't have won the Champion Hurdle at least that was a race under his belt.

"You've got to ignore the result because it obviously doesn't bare true relation Punjabi got hammered in the Kingwell three weeks before it last year and won the Champion Hurdle."