Beshabar involvement at Festival is in doubt

Winner of his last two starts at Sandown and Ascot, he is the general 10-1 favourite for the race.

However, Findlay – whose family hail from Sheffield – says they will not risk next season's planned novice chase career for the sake of running at this year's Festival.

"He won't run unless there is genuine soft in the ground," said Findlay.

"He'll run next year in the RSA on soft ground and we'll all be lumping on.

"Paul Nicholls, to be fair, has done a great job with him because he had a year out.

"I don't want to ask him to go for the Coral Cup on good ground so we'll wait for the novice chases next year."

Findlay also had a brief update on his Gold Cup hope Denman, who has drifted in the betting in recent days due to a dry weather forecast and an avalanche of support for stablemate Kauto Star.

"The Tank (Denman) is fine. It will be harder on good ground but not impossible," he added.

In many respects, the most sentimental Gold Cup winner would be 50-1 shot Carruthers who is owned by his breeder Lord Oaksey, a doyen of racing.

However, trainer Mark Bradstock admits that the seven-year-old faces a "daunting" task, even though he has only finished outside the first two three times in 13 career starts and chased home Taranis on his latest appearance in the Argento Chase at Cheltenham.

"It's a hell of an ask and Kauto Star is probably one of the best horses that I've ever seen," said Bradstock.

"It is daunting but stranger things do happen."

THE final jumps fixture of the season at Catterick will see Keith Mercer and Denis O'Regan battle for top riding honours at the track in 2009-10 – provided the meeting passes a precautionary 8am inspection today.

BEN Haslam, who took over the licence from his father Pat at their Middleham stable last month, saddled his first winner when Hi Dancer scored under Giles Hawkins at Newcastle yesterday.