Alexandre to sidestep Christmas Festival The exciting Pont Alexandre will skip the busy Christmas period. Willie Mullins will resist the urge to run the novice chaser in one of the many options over the next few weeks to give him more time to recover after his sparkling return to action at Punchestown. After nearly 1,000 days off the track since finishing third to The New One in the 2013 Neptune Novices' Hurdle, he made a flawless chasing debut. "I don't want to think about Christmas with Pont Alexandre, I'm going to see how he is," said Mullins. "He'd been off for long enough and I think it would be too soon. "It was a huge performance after 998 days off - it was only the fifth run of his career and he jumped like a handicap chaser. "To make his own running around Punchestown, he took it as if it was a schooling day. To me, that says a huge amount about his ability. The further he goes the better - he just likes to roll along."
