Peddlers Cross to go for the Jewson

Peddlers Cross will go for the Jewson Novices' Chase at the Cheltenham Festival next week.

Donald McCain's stable star was third-favourite for the Arkle but the trainer has gone for the Grade 2 option over a further half mile.

He said on twitter tonight: "After schooling today we've made the decision to run Peddlers Cross in the Jewson next week at Cheltenham."

In his Betfair blog, McCain added: "It has been a long road back from the setback he had at Kempton in December and we feel at this stage that the 2m4f event will be more beneficial to him in the long term, as we did when running him in the Neptune rather than the Supreme when he was a novice hurdler.

"Because of his problems after Kempton, we haven't been able to school him as intensively as we would have liked and feel that going that half stride slower in the longer race makes sense."