Pandorama to miss Cheltenham

Noel Meade's Pandorama has been ruled out of next month's Cheltenham Festival as the trainer looks to save his exciting inmate for a novice chase campaign next season.

The six-year-old chased home the hugely impressive Mikael D'Haguenet on his penultimate start at Navan before getting off the mark at Grade One level in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown, a race in which Cousin Vinny crashed out at the last when going ominously well.

The gelding holds entries in the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle and the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle at Prestbury Park but his trainer already has his eyes on a much bigger prize a couple of years further down the line.

"Pandorama will definitely not go to Cheltenham. Myself and Paul (Carberry) have had a long chat about it and we've decided against it for this year," said Meade.

"He is a huge horse and we feel he has the potential to be a really top-drawer chaser. In order to give him every chance to be that we don't want to put him under that much pressure in Cheltenham this year.

"We're not saying he wouldn't be able to win at the Festival but win or lose, he was going to have a very hard race and we just felt that wasn't the right thing for him at this stage.

"Maybe next year if all goes to plan he could go to Cheltenham for one of the novice chases and we feel if we can keep him in one piece he might just make up into a Gold Cup horse one day.

"He's in terrific nick and we will just see how he is before deciding whether we run him at Fairyhouse and Punchestown."