Les Fell’s Silver Streak targeting a Christmas Hurdle double at Kempton

Wales-based Williams enjoyed the 2020 festive season more than most, with big-race success in both the Grade One hurdle at Kempton on Boxing Day and in the Welsh National at Chepstow with Secret Reprieve.

Williams is hopeful that both his stable stars remain on course to defend their respective titles, but admitted both will take their engagements more in hope than expectation.

Silver Streak has failed to produce the form that saw him land the Christmas Hurdle in four subsequent starts, including when trailing eight lengths behind dead-heaters Not So Sleepy and Epatante in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle

However Williams was successful in last Saturday’s Racing Post Gold Cup at Cheltenham when Coole Cody defeated, amongst others, Sue and Harvey Smith’s Midnight Shadow.

Williams said: “Silver Streak will go to the Christmas Hurdle. I haven’t worked him but he will work this week, and the plan is for him to defend his crown.

“He jumped terribly at Newcastle. He jumped like his legs were tied together - his jumping, the last two runs, has been an issue and I can’t say I have found the reason why.

“I just think he is getting older and wiser, and the ground he has been running on, when it is on the soft side, it has become very difficult for him to operate.

“I don’t think that is an excuse for his jumping, he just hasn’t been on his A game this year at all. However, we are going back there, just because the track suits him and that is where he has shown his best form.

“It is nice that he can go back and defend his crown. Win, lose or draw, he does deserve that chance as the current holder.”

Secret Reprieve, who justified favouritism to take the extended three-and-three-quarter-mile Coral Welsh National, will need to defy a year-long absence to defend in his title.

“Secret Reprieve will hopefully go straight to Chepstow,” said Williams.

“I wouldn’t say we are on course, because we haven’t had a prep run.

“I would dearly have loved to have got a prep run under his belt and I presume we will just use it as a stepping stone to dates we know after Christmas.

“It has been very tricky. We have not been able to get a run into him. The lack of rain has definitely had implications not just for him, but for many trainers and horses.”

In other news, Burrow Seven will make his long-awaited racecourse debut at Catterick today.

The four-year old gelding is owned by the Burrow Seven Racing Club, set up in honour of former rugby league star Rob Burrow MBE, with profits raised from the racing club split equally between the MND Association and Leeds Hospital Charities.

The club raised £100,000 for the MND Association last year and Burrow Seven brand ambassador Barrie McDermott, who is also a former Rhinos player, is excited to see their charge hit the racecourse.

He said: “I would like to say a huge thank you to all Burrow Seven members, corporate partners and brand ambassadors for their brilliant support during the 2021 fundraising campaign.

“We have been able to donate £100,000 and we are really looking forward to the 2022 fundraising campaign and seeing Burrow Seven make his debut.”

Burrow Seven is a half-brother to the useful Silver Hallmark among others and is traioned at Leyburn by Jedd O’Keeffe. He will be ridden by Oakley Brown.

“We are very much looking forward to seeing Burrow Seven make his racecourse debut at Catterick. He’s ready for his first run and will benefit from the experience on the track,” said O’Keeffe.

Dubai Honour has opened the door to a wealth of international options with Yorkshire-born trainer William Haggas suggesting the ‘world is his oyster’ after finishing a close-up fourth against older rivals in the Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin.

Fourth in the Britannia Handicap at Royal Ascot in June, the rapidly-improving gelding won a pair of valuable French Group Two events before finishing runner-up in the Champion Stakes at Ascot on his previous outing.

The Mohamed Obaida-owned four-year-old backed that up when finishing a length and a half behind Loves Only You in Hong Kong on Sunday.

Having been held up, Tom Marquand’s mount was short of room approaching the final furlong, but when eventually finding a gap, he finished off his race nicely.

Haggas said: “He ran a good race - a very good race. He seemed fine afterwards. I saw him trot up this morning and we are very happy with him so far. So, I think the world is his oyster, really, and he he has shown he can go on quicker ground, which is important for international races.”