Skelton looking towards Cheltenham Dan Skelton is looking forward to a tilt at the JLT Novices' Chase at the Cheltenham Festival with Three Musketeers. The six-year-old was an impressive winner of a well-contested event at Newbury's Hennessy meeting in late November, but fluffed his lines when favourite to add to his tally in another strong race at Cheltenham on New Year's Day. Skelton feels he has viable excuses for that below-par effort and is looking forward to return to Prestbury Park for the showpiece meeting next month. He said: "He will go straight to the JLT. It was a bad run last time at Cheltenham and he did have a few problems afterwards which transpired during the race. "One thing I did take out of the race, though, was that he jumped very well. "The JLT is not all of a sudden an uncompetitive race just because Killultagh Vic is out as Bristol De Mai is in there and he is no idiot winning all these graded races left, right and centre." Skelton also provided an update on Born Survivor, who looked the part on his hurdling debut at Warwick in December but failed to fire on his next appearance at the same track last month. "He has no entries at Cheltenham and we might go to the Premier Hurdle at Kelso on March 5," said the trainer. "His second run at Warwick was a disaster but ours weren't right then and were under a bit of a cloud but at the end of the day he got beat. "I am confident I can have him better than that, though."
