King keen to sort jockey for Yanworth

Alan King hopes to have a jockey in place to ride leading Stan James Champion Hurdle contender Yanworth by the end of the weekend.

With owner JP McManus' retained rider, and potential partner of the Grade One winner, Barry Geraghty, missing the Cheltenham Festival through injury, the Barbury Castle Stables handler is now seeking a replacement for his stable star.

Since being beaten by Yorkhill in last year's Neptune, which is his only defeat over hurdles, the seven-year-old, who is as short as 100-30 for the two-mile prize on March 14, has won each of his three starts this term, the most recent in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton last month.

King said: "I don't know who is going to ride him and we need to speak at the weekend, as we do need to find out.

"Obviously I would like them to come and have a sit on him. No one has ridden him over a hurdle bar Barry Geraghty, so whoever rides him we want to come and school him and possibly ride a bit of work.

"The good thing is he has come out of Wincanton very well. We gave him a thorough check-over after Wincanton. The vet, physio and Dan Horsford, who rides him every day, are all delighted with him.

"He didn't have a great preparation for that (Wincanton), but I just felt we needed to get a bit more match practice in him and fortunately he has come out of that very well. I don't think the cheekpieces did him any harm. It was just to make him a bit more slicker through the air.

"He is a horse that is totally genuine, but he does like to have a look around. He is a bit slow over a hurdle when he gets in tight and I did think at Wincanton he was much sharper. If anything, he does jump a hurdle like a fence.

"This is a more suitable test for him. Wincanton was Plan B as we were going to go to Sandown, but we had that hold up and I couldn't do that. It was Wincanton or nowhere. I think he has won despite the tracks."

Although riding plans for McManus' trio of Champion Hurdle runners has yet to be confirmed, trainer Nicky Henderson expects Noel Fehily to step in for the ride aboard Buveur D'Air, who made a successful transition back to hurdles in a Listed event at Sandown.

He said: "I suspect he will. I saw JP on Monday and I don't think anybody has really discussed it as there are so many horses involved in the conundrum. We've got My Tent Or Yours in there as well. Mark Walsh will come over from Ireland to ride a number of them (McManus horses). There are a lot of jockeys that do know some of the horses, though."