Award Seeks Bumper Gold

Gold Award is likely to be a first Cheltenham Festival runner for The Queen after he featured among 47 entries for the Weatherbys Champion Bumper.

Although Her Majesty has owned Flat horses for over 50 years, she has only had runners under National Hunt Rules since the death of the Queen Mother in 2002.

And in the shape of the unbeaten Gold Award, trained by Nicky Henderson, she has a live chance of making her first runner at the Festival a winner.

Sir Michael Oswald, who manages the Queen´s jump horses, said: "The plan is to run Gold Award in the Champion Bumper at the Festival.

"He is a very well-bred horse ? bred for the Flat. When in training with Sir Michael Stoute, he was big, weak, flat-sided, slow-maturing and he quite understandably couldn´t run him on the Flat as a three-year-old.

"He went up to the stud at Sandringham, where they did a very good job looking after him and brought him on slowly.

"He has come out of his Ascot run very well. He´s a bit green still.

"We ran him at Fakenham on debut because, at that point, there had been a lot of very wet weather and it´s a very well-drained course ? it was about the only place in England you could run him ? and he needed to have a race because he was ready for a race.

"I wasn´t sure that he´d get around the bends ? it´s a fairly tight course ? but he did it perfectly happily.

"He was a little bit green when he hit the front but he was very well ridden by Mick Fitzgerald, who kept him beautifully balanced.

"Then he went to Ascot, where Felix De Giles rode him beautifully, and he beat what I believe to be a very good horse. Again, he was a shade green when he hit the front.

"Her Majesty has so much to do that she won´t be going to see him run at the Cheltenham Festival.

"She has a terrific lot on her plate at the moment but the race will be recorded for her to watch."

Irish-trained horses have captured 12 of the 15 runnings and County Meath-based Noel Meade plans to be double-handed with Corskeagh Royale and Cottage Oak.

Corskeagh Royale has won his last two starts, including an eight-length victory in the hands of Nina Carberry over Lord Over at Navan in December.

Both victories came with cut in the ground and Meade said: "I wouldn´t fear good ground and he´s shown that he handles soft ground well.

"I like him a lot and he is a nice horse, who I am sure will be a chaser and he jumps very well and has been well schooled.

"Nina will probably ride one of my two ? she has won on him so she probably will ride him."

Cottage Oak is unbeaten in two runs and has not be seen in action since scoring by two lengths from Sanglote at Cork in November.

The trainer went on: "He is a pretty useful horse as well and goes on good ground too. He won very easily first time and easily at Cork and we have kept him for this race."

Meanwhile, Britain´s champion trainer Paul Nicholls is set to be represented by Mahonia as he seeks his first success in the race.

"He won really nicely at Chepstow the other day and was really impressive, beating a horse of Colin Tizzard´s called The Jazz Musician, and he runs," said the Ditcheat handler.

"I think that he´s a really nice horse, he´s probably been our best bumper horse at home, but he´ll need to be good to be in the finish as it´s always a hard race to win and whether he´s good enough or not, we´ll see."

Weatherbys Champion Bumper, Paddy Power bet: 7-2 Zaarito, 9-2 Apt Approach, 7-1 Lilywhitedancer, 10-1 Corskeagh Royale, 12-1 Big Eared Fran, Gold Award, 14-1 Cousin Vinny, 16-1 bar.

(C) PA Sport