Cheltenham on the horizon for Pink Sheets

Micky Quinn is eyeing up a first runner at the Cheltenham Festival with Pink Sheets, following her impressive win at Newbury last weekend.

Quinn has the Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle in his sights after his six-year-old took her winning run to four under Jack Quinlan.

Quinn trains in Newmarket, the home of Flat racing, but is aiming to infiltrate National Hunt racing’s headquarters in March.

“We’re aiming her at the Dawn Run — but prior to that there’s a Listed race at Warwick in February she could run in,” he said.

“At the moment we haven’t got any plans between now and then because she has been on the go a long time, since August.

“I think the novice mares’ race looks perfect — spring ground is what she wants. She ran over hurdles last December in sticky ground, (and) everything went wrong, so we gave her a break, then Covid kicked in.

“Since she had her first run back in August she has improved with every run and turned inside out. She’ll have plenty of experience come March, and her jumping is electric.

“I read before Saturday’s race that a galloping track wouldn’t suit her. But I felt completely the opposite, and so it proved — she jumped like a dream, at pace, and got the others at it a long way out.

“People have tried to decry the form. But Brian Ellison’s filly (Mrs Hyde, third) looked the best novice filly we’d seen beforehand. Newbury is a long straight, so they had plenty of time to catch her, but they couldn’t because her jumping was so good.

“She’ll be my first runner at the Festival. I couldn’t tell you when the last Newmarket winner there was — Amy Murphy just got chinned with Kalashnikov (in the 2018 Supreme), and that is as close as we’ve come for a while. I don’t even know when the entries are!

“She’s 20-1 at the moment, and there’ll be a lot worse each-way bets than her — she’s just getting better and better. She’s something to look to the winter to, for a change.”