Call The Cops on track for glory at Cheltenham

Now they are hoping that their eye-catching black and white colours will be carried to Cheltenham Festival glory by Call The Cops, who couldn’t have been more impressive when bounding clear at Doncaster on Saturday under a resurgent Andrew Tinkler.

The lightly-raced six-year-old, trained by Nicky Henderson, was having just his second start of the season and is now ante-post favourite for the Pertemps Network Final – a fiercely competitive three-mile handicap hurdle – on Thursday week.

“I’d gone away for a few days in Tenerife and couldn’t believe watching it on TV how easily he won,” said owner Matt Morgan.

“We thought Batavir would take a lot of beating and that we’d need the run, but the favourite didn’t run his race and our lad loved being back on good ground.

“Nicky says he’s absolutely bouncing and that he didn’t have a hard race. All things being equal, and everything going to plan, I reckon we’ll be running.”

As for the rest of the Henderson contenders at Cheltenham, he continues to be encouraged by the progress being made by Sprinter Sacre ahead of his stable star’s attempt to regain his Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase crown following a year on the sidelines as a result of a fibrillating heart.

The 2012-13 champion trainer has also talked up the prospects of Grade One-winner L’Ami Serge, who is second favourite for next Tuesday’s Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle – the four-day festival’s traditional curtain-raiser.

Though the Willie Mullins-trained Douvan is a warm favourite, Henderson is optimistic.

“L’Ami Serge has done everything right. I did not think he was very well handicapped when we started him off in the Gerry Feilden (Newbury, November 27, where he won by six lengths), but it turns out he was absolutely thrown in!” he said.

“You would like him to win at the Festival because that will get the whole meeting off to a good start. It is good to get one on the board because it takes the pressure off, but Willie Mullins’s horse sounds pretty good.

“We think better ground will help L’Ami Serge. I know he came from France but he is by King’s Theatre and most of them want better ground. I don’t think it will do him any harm and he is not short on pace. I asked Barry (Geraghty) the other day if he wanted to switch to two-and-a-half but he said no.”

Top Irish jockey Bryan Cooper, meanwhile, rates Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup contender Road To Riches as one of his best mounts as this year’s Festival approaches.

As retained rider to Gigginstown House Stud, Cooper has the pick of their runners and named the Noel Meade-trained winner of this season’s JNwine.com Champion Chase and Lexus Chase as one he is looking forward to.

He also singled out the Gordon Elliott duo of Don Cossack, likely for the Ryanair Chase, and Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle fancy No More Heroes as other very good mounts.

Cooper, one of the best young riders in Britain and Ireland, came to prominence with three Festival winners in 2013 before suffering a crashing fall at Cheltenham last year which saw him suffer career-threatening leg injuries.

He has been riding in a brace and has proven his fitness with a number of big race wins in Ireland in the maroon and white colours of Gigginstown boss Michael O’Leary, the owner of Ryanair.

“At this stage final plans are still to be decided and we don’t know yet exactly where every horse will run,” Cooper told his online blog. “The ones I’m really looking forward to at the moment are Don Cossack, Road To Riches and No More Heroes.

“They should all go there with great chances but I’m not nominating one as my best ride as that’ll probably get them beat!

“Outlander and Tell Us More are also great rides to have, but there is no final plan with them yet.”

Night In Milan, the main Yorkshire hope for next month’s Crabbie’s Grand National, has been given a clean bill of health by trainer Keith Reveley after his fine third in the Betbright Grimthorpe Chase on Town Moor.

“He’s come out of it grand, no cuts or anything, so it’s straight to the National now,” said the Saltburn handler, whose stable star was ridden by his son James. “The winner Wayward Prince was a very good horse a few years ago and had plummeted down the weights.

“He was just too well handicapped for us, but we ran our race. He’s proved in his last two races he doesn’t have to make all of the running now, and that is crucial because that would be very hard to do in a National.”

Trainer David Pipe, meanwhile, has given a similarly upbeat bulletin on the credentials of Soll who won Newbury’s Betway Supporting Greatwood Veterans’ Handicap Chase on Saturday.

Soll, previously trained in Ireland, is likely to be the Pipe stable’s top contender for this year’s National and the probable mount of in-form stable jockey Tom Scudamore.

“He travelled very well in the blinkers for Conor O’Farrell and he was always doing enough in the closing stages to repel Relax,” said Pipe, who recently recorded the 100th winner of his campaign.

“He appeared to be dossing in front and I think he would have found more if seriously challenged.

“This success was from a mark of 139, the mark that he has been allotted in the Grand National.

“He jumps well and stays all day and would appear to be our best hope of success in the big one.”

This Thursday’s jumps meeting at Wincanton has been abandoned due to the Somerset course being waterlogged.

Despite this, there is every likelihood that the Cheltenham course will have to be watered ahead of the National Hunt Festival because of drying ground.

“Watering through the week is a possibility,” said clerk of the course Simon Claisse.

“We aim to start with ground on the slow side of good, it is difficult to know how fast the ground will dry out, though, so we may need to water through the week which we have done five or six times in the last 14 years.”