Captain Conan coming to Leopardstown Nicky Henderson has confirmed Captain Conan will run in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown on Sunday. His French import won the Tolworth Hurdle on his British debut and the trainer will use the weekend's race to determine whether he's ready for Cheltenham. "He's a lovely big horse, a very good big horse I hope, but I'm not really sure he needs to be going to Cheltenham this year. The alternative was to wait for a nice novice hurdle at Ascot next week but it isn't worth a fortune and probably wouldn't tell us an awful lot," Henderson told At The Races. "I thought if we were ever going to take on good horses I might as well do it now and see if he really is grown up enough for Cheltenham. It will be quite interesting to test the English and Irish novices before Cheltenham and that doesn't happen very often. "Molotof will run in the listed hurdle at Exeter on Sunday and that's really the last decent novice there is over two miles, there's the Dovecote at Kempton but I wouldn't want to be going there with Captain Conan."
