Murphy Ace Heading To Ireland

Ferdy Murphy is set to stick to his original plan for L'Antartique, with Paddy Power Gold Cup hero on course for a trip to Ireland at Christmas.

The West Witton handler initially pointed towards the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown on December 28 following the seven-year-old's narrow victory in the big handicap at Cheltenham.

However, a relatively small rise in the weights prompted Murphy to consider a run in the boylesports.com Gold Cup back at Prestbury Park ? an option he has now virtually ruled out.

'We have given L'Antartique an easy time since his Paddy Power Gold Cup win and it looks like we will stick to the plan of going for the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown after Christmas,' he confirmed.

Despite the likely absence of L'Antartique, Murphy will still have Three Mirrors as he chases a Cheltenham double on December 15.

'Both L'Antartique and Three Mirrors will be entered. We need to see how things go, but Three Mirrors is the one we will be concentrating on for the race,' he explained.

'We give him every chance ? I think we will have a big run from him.'

Three Mirrors finished 12th behind his stablemate in the Paddy Power but Murphy expects his charge to have learned a lot from the experience.

He added: 'Three Mirrors made a mistake at the fence at the top of the hill, which was a crucial time in the race and without that I think he would have probably finished fifth or sixth.

'But that's why we ran him in the race, to give him experience. We knew he was good enough to run in the Paddy Power, whether he was going to win it was always another matter. There is a fair bit of improvement in him.

'He's fairly decent and to win these good races you need experience, and the only way horses get that kind of experience is by running in races like the boylesports and the Paddy Power.'

(C) PA Sport