Sam Spinner going back to basics after Wetherby setback

O’Keeffe reports Paul and Caron Chapman’s horse to be “fine” after being pulled up by jockey Joe Collier in Saturday’s Grade Two Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby.

This was horse’s first run since suffering a pelvic injury last December in the wake of winning his first three starts over steeplechase fences.

While the white-faced Sam Spinner, one of the North’s most popular horses, had been pleasing connections on the Middleham gallops, he was not the same horse at Wetherby in a race ultimately won by Harry Cobden on Cyrname, the country’s highest-rated steeplechaser.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, O’Keeffe said the horse did not appear to be travelling well for Colliver before making a mistake at the sixth fence in the Charlie Hall – the big open ditch at the end of the back straight.

“The good news is he’s fine, eaten up and is sound,” reported the North Yorkshire trainer, who went on to praise his jockey for putting the horse’s interests first.

“Joe just felt that the horse was not travelling, not enjoying himself and maybe lacking confidence. I would not have wanted to see him have to push Sam very hard, and so early in the race, just to keep him competitive.

“If anything, that would have damaged his confidence even more. The horse has been galloping and schooling great at home and we are going to revert back to hurdles to restore his confidence and see if he’s still a racehorse.”

This is not an easy decision for the Sam Spinner connections who even harboured Cheltenham Gold Cup dreams before the Charlie Hall.

While Sam Spinner is perhaps not the most natural of steeplechase horses, he remains – on past form – one of the country’s best three-mile hurdlers in a division that is wide open.

After all, he came to the fore by winning a fiercely competitive handicap hurdle at Haydock in November 2017 by a wide margin before landing the Grade One Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot the following month – the finest hour in the careers of O’Keeffe and Colliver to date.

Yet the 2018-19 season started ominously. Sam Spinner was already well-beaten, with his jumping lacking fluency, when unseating the luckless Colliver in Newbury’s Long Distance Hurdle.

His hurdling was even more erratic, and gave Colliver no chance of staying in the saddle, when he sought to defend his Grade One title at Ascot.

But the horse then finished a pleasing fourth at Cheltenham in January 2019 before producing, arguably, the run of his life when narrowly defeated by Paisley Park in the Stayers’ Hurdle at that season’s National Hunt Festival.

This first ‘comeback’ offers O’Keeffe some hope for the future as he considers whether to run Sam Spinner in Newbury’s Long Distance Hurdle at the end of this month.

The alternative is carrying top weight in Haydock’s handicap hurdle on Betfair Chase day, a proposition which is even less attractive to the trainer who accepts that there are no easy options.

“What we would like to see is him showing some enthusiasm and looking like he’s enjoying himself,” added O’Keeffe. “I’m very, very glad Joe pulled him up when he did – both from a physical and mental perspective.

“We certainly didn’t take a step forward at Wetherby, we took a step back. But we’ve been in the depths of despair before and we’ve got him back. All is not lost, but we have got some work to do.”

Malton trainer Brian Ellison remains disappointed by the run of 2018 Charlie Hall winner Defintly Red in Saturday’s race.

Last of the finishers, he could now be aimed at Newcastle’s Rehearsal Chase rather than the more competitive Many Clouds Chase at Aintree in early December.

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