Cardinal Confirmed For Lingfield Showpiece Lingfield Park stages a top-class seven-race jumping card on Saturday headed by the £100,000 Grade One totesport Chase (2.10pm), run over an extended two and a half miles. The card has been transferred from Ascot, where rebuilding work is taking place, to Lingfield and the feature event has 10 top-class entries including the Henry Daly-trained Hand Inn Hand, who landed the prize 12 months ago. Top hurdler Iris´s Gift is set to make his chasing debut at Lingfield and among his opponents will be Murphy´s Cardinal, today confirmed a definite starter by trainer Noel Chance. The nine-year-old won a Grade Three chase in Ireland before being well beaten by Rule Supreme in the Grade One Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Leopardstown earlier this month and Chance had considered an alternative engagement in Ireland for his stable star this weekend. 'The attraction of Lingfield is that the totesport Chase is worth about £80,000 more than the race in Ireland and its considerably closer as well,' Chance enthused. 'Also we like to support these races - trainers have been castigated in the press today over a few races at Plumpton yesterday which weren´t supported. When we have the horse, we are happy enough to run in them. 'Murphy´s Cardinal has come out of Leopardstown pretty good and he´s in excellent form at home - I was delighted with the way that he jumped in Ireland. 'I still think that he´s a three-mile horse but he´s won at two and a half miles. I´m not so sure whether he´s as good at this trip as he is over three but we´ll see on Saturday. 'Depending how he runs on Saturday, he´s in the Daily Telegraph Festival Trophy Chase and the William Hill Handicap Chase and a couple of other races at Cheltenham. He´s also still in the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup and Saturday will tell us where to go - it could very well be the last named if he was impressive at Lingfield.' Among the possible opposition are the Martin Pipe-trained pair of It Takes Time and Seebald. The former was third in a handicap chase at Cheltenham on his last start on New Year´s Day, while Seebald was only beaten a short-head by three-time totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Best Mate in the William Hill Chase at Exeter in November. Others include Forest Gunner, who won the betfair.com Grand Sefton Handicap Chase at Aintree by eight lengths in November, last year´s totesport Gold Trophy Handicap Hurdle winner Geos, who could revert to the larger obstacles, and top novice Ollie Magern, the winner of the Totty Construction Towton Novices´ Chase at Wetherby last time. The card also features the £35,000 Grade Two Reynoldstown Novices´ Chase (1.40pm), over three miles, which has drawn 16 possibles go to post for one of the most informative novice events of the season. In 2004 this contest, when run at Ascot, went to Martin Pipe´s totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup hopeful Our Vic, who easily got the better of a fine field by six lengths from Rosslea. This year the champion trainer could be represented by Control Man, victorious in the bonusprint.com Novices´ Chase at Cheltenham in December and a similar event at Exeter early in the New Year. Mark Pitman has the choice of Captain Corelli, a recent scorer at Leicester, and Too Forward, a Folkestone winner on January 3. Other recent winners include Distant Thunder, who struck at Newbury last weekend, Jazz D´Estruval, who has landed his last two starts at Ayr and Haydock, beating Trabolgan by nine lengths at the latter venue, and the above-mentioned Ollie Magern.
