Blazer set for step up in trip Willie Mullins is to step Blazer up in trip after the well-backed favourite cut no ice in the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury on Saturday. The five-year-old, owned by JP McManus, was sent off a warm order at 3-1 for one of the most competitive handicaps in the jumps calendar after landing an impressive victory at Leopardstown a week earlier. However, he was unable to land a blow and finished a well-beaten ninth behind Agrapart. "He's a two-and-a-half-mile horse, really," said Mullins. "We had to take a gamble. We were in with bottom weight, but, to me, looking at him in the race he's a two-and-a-half-mile horse." Mullins saddled five horses in the big race, but the best he could manage was sixth with Kalkir. "My horses at Newbury ran like hairy goats!," Mullins told At The Races. "Dicosimo fell but is fine. Buiseness Sivola also had a really tough fall. "We had him X-rayed on his neck before we left Newbury and he seems fine. "Kalkir ran well and Ivan Grozny was disappointing."
