Smooth Tom, right© Photo Healy Racing
Andy Slattery will put Smooth Tom away with a view to returning in the Irish Lincoln after he finished well behind in the Grade 1 Morgiana Hurdle at Punchestown on Saturday.
The five-year-old gelding began his year with a runner-up berth in the Irish Lincoln at the Curragh in March, and has mixed both codes since with a runner-up berth in the Grade 3 Horse & Jockey Hotel Hurdle at Tipperary and a victory in the Amateur Derby at the Curragh the same month the pick of his results.
He was an outsider for a hot renewal of the Morgiana, but Slattery feels he didn't give his true running.
He said: "Smooth Tom never ran his race.
"Whatever happened him up the north (unseated in a Grade 3 at Down Royal on penultimate start), he wouldn't have won a '95' the other day - that wasn't his running. He galloped on the road in Down Royal for a mile and a-half and I think he got spooked. He's just not the same after it.
"I'm going to let him off for a little while now.
"We schooled him Monday morning after (Punchestown) and he didn't take on his hurdles right, his confidence has gone.
"I'd say if he finished behind them it was his running, or up their tails or something like that, but tailed off wasn't his running. He was gone after two hurdles.
"I might have a shot at the Lincoln again, we'll see.
"We will get him back, he is perfectly sound and everything."
