Long Run challenge awaits Unioniste

This £100,000 race, the early-season highlight of the National Hunt season, has been rewarded with a stellar 11-horse line-up that could also include Irish raider Benefficient, who provided his young rider Bryan Cooper with a memorable first victory at Cheltenham in March.

Effectively a trial for Kempton’s King George Chase on Boxing Day, the big race build-up will inevitably revolve around the Nicky Henderson-trained Long Run – the 2012 Gold Cup hero and dual King George winner – who will be one of the highest-rated horses to have lined up at the West Yorkshire track.

But Nicholls, who surrendered his cherished champion trainer title to Henderson in April, is not an individual to shirk a challenge and he has nominated the five-year-old Unioniste to take on Long Run, who has been placed in each of his 26 career starts – a remarkable level of consistency.

Owned by John Hales whose late, great One Man was a dual Charlie Hall winner in the 1990s, this is the mud-splattered grey who won the Paul Stewart IronSpine Charity Challenge Gold Cup at Cheltenham last December with the trainer’s teenage nephew Harry Derham in the saddle.

“He is in very good nick, but it is a totally different proposition to last year when Silviniaco Conti won the Charlie Hall and then the Betfair Chase at Haydock,” Nicholls told the Yorkshire Post.

“There was no Long Run last year, that’s the difference, and Unioniste is going to have to improve a lot if he’s to figure in the finish. Remember, he won at Cheltenham off bottom weight. This will be very different.

“I like him a lot, he was third to Dynaste at Cheltenham last November, and everything suggests that he will be a nice chaser. I’ve always thought he would be a nice horse. Saturday will tell us what kind of horse we have – and the type of races we will be going for later in the season.”

Gold Cup runner-up First Lieutenant is entered by former Ampleforth pupil Mouse Morris, but he is more likely to contest Down Royal’s big chase on Saturday.

However, David Bridgwater’s 2012 Cheltenham Gold Cup second, The Giant Bolster, is an intended runner, while Kim Bailey runs his exciting six-year-old Harry Topper.

Malcolm Jefferson’s Cape Tribulation and Micky Hammond’s Master Of The Hall are the two Yorkshire representatives, with the entries completed by Big Fella Thanks, Billie Magern and Wayward Prince. Notable absentees include Sue Smith’s Grand National hero Auroras Encore.

There will be a mouth-watering clash in the bet365 Hurdle, the main support race to the Charlie Hall, with the 2012 winner Tidal Bay due to take on champion novice At Fishers Cross.

Now 12 and trained by the aforementioned Nicholls, Tidal Bay is one of the most enigmatic horses in racing, but he rolled back the years to win a memorable Lexus Chase at Leopardstown last December.

In contrast At Fishers Cross, owned by JP McManus and trained by Rebecca Curtis, is a rising star who was victorious at the Cheltenham Festival under 
AP McCoy.

Because the contest attracted just nine initial entries, the race was reopened – trainers have until mid-morning today to consider late entries – but Curtis is encouraged by the state of the good to soft ground. “He’ll definitely come on for the run,” she said.

McCoy’s pursuit of his 4,000th career winner was halted by the wind and rain yesterday – Bangor, Redcar and Leicester were all abandoned.

The 18-time champion jockey, 11 victories short of the landmark, heads to Ffos Las today, while Catterick’s final Flat meeting of 2013 will have to pass an early inspection at 7.30am.

Malcolm Jefferson’s new recruit Oscar Rock – a summer acquisition from the Harry Fry stable – could make his hurdling debut at Wetherby on Friday.

“Everything I’ve seen of him at home confirms what he has done on the course,” said the Malton trainer. “I never like to shout about my horses, I would rather they did the talking on the course, but he’s an athletic horse who has a very exciting future.”

Ladbrokes St Leger winner Leading Light will remain in training next season and be aimed at the Ascot Gold Cup, according to his trainer Aidan O’Brien. “That’s the plan,” said the Ballydoyle handler.

This year’s Gold Cup was won by the Queen’s filly Estimate and her trainer Sir Michael Stoute attributed the horse’s Champions Day defeat to a slight injury sustained shortly before York’s Ebor festival.

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