11 Entered For Inaugural Betfair Chase A total of 11 horses have been entered for the inaugural £150,000 Grade One Betfair Chase, the highlight of the first day of the North West Masters at Haydock Park on Saturday, November 19 and the first leg of the Betfair Million. As expected, the entries are headed by Kicking King, trained in Ireland by Tom Taaffe and successful last season in both the Stan James King George VI Chase and the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup.Kicking King is likely to be joined on Saturday by Kingscliff, runner-up in last season´s Stan James King George VI Chase as well as recent Charlie Hall Chase victor Ollie Magern.In addition to Kicking King, the Irish have another strong challenger in the form of Beef Or Salmon, successful in the Grade One Lexus Chase last season. Peter Bowen has entered last´s season´s totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Take The Stand while other strong contenders include Martin Pipe´s Celestial Gold, Lord Transcend from the Howard Johnson stable and Jonjo O´Neill´s´s dual Haydock Park winner Keen Leader.The three remaining entries are last year´s John Smith´s Grand National second Royal Auclair, Hand Inn Hand and Happy Hussar.Haydock Ground ImprovingClerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright expressed satisfaction with the current state of the ground at Haydock Park: 'The going is currently soft, good to soft in places. 'The forecast is dry for the rest of the week and quite cold, and it looks like being good to soft for Saturday. The daytime temperatures at present mean that any early morning frost should not cause any problems'.
