Nightingale sidesteps Ascot The Nightingale has been ruled out of Saturday's BetVictor.com Handicap Chase at Ascot. Paul Nicholls' nine-year-old has enjoyed no luck this season, tiring close home in the JNWine.com Champion Chase at Down Royal, before falling in the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon and then unseated his rider at Cheltenham. The handicapper refuses to relent on his rating of 167 which forces him to take on the best around or concede lumps of weight, but Nicholls has decided against doing the latter this weekend. "He's OK. He schooled well this morning but I'm not going to run him with top weight. He's so hard to place off 167," the champion trainer told Racing UK. "He'll probably wait for the Ascot Chase in the middle of February."
