RSA favourite on easy list

Time For Rupert will enjoy a week on the easy list before resuming his Cheltenham Festival preparations.

Trainer Paul Webber was forced to abandon plans to run his star novice in Saturday's Argento Chase at Prestbury Park after pre-race tests showed the seven-year-old to be suffering from a minor ailment.

Time For Rupert, who is unbeaten in two starts at Cheltenham this term, is the ante-post favourite for the RSA Chase and Webber is pleased the problem was discovered before the race.

He said: "It is disappointing to have to miss the race, but it is not as disappointing as it would have been had he run when not at his best.

"Imagine if he had run and finished fifth or something, that would have been hugely disappointing and sent us back to the drawing board again.

"It's much better that we found out before the race and saved the betting public losing any money and ourselves the disappointment of a bad performance.

"His trachea wash looked clean yesterday but when we had a closer look, he had a very high white blood cell count which means he is just sickening for something.

"Although we can't see the problem, there is something there and he will have five days of antibiotics and an easy week now before we start preparing for the Festival."

The Argento was due to be Time For Rupert's final start before the March feature but Webber is not too concerned about missing the run.

He added: "The plan was to have the two runs at Cheltenham before Christmas and then go to either Cheltenham or Wetherby next week.

"We decided on those races in case the weather forced a cancellation or if he wasn't able to run due to illness, we would have adequate time to get him right for March.

"It just doesn't work if you run a horse that isn't 100%."