Dan Skelton © Photo Healy Racing
L’Eau Du Sud jumped for fun around Cheltenham to take the Paddy Power Arkle Challenge Trophy Trial Novices’ Chase with ease, leaving Dan Skelton to dream of what the future might hold.
The dashing grey was impressive on his chasing debut at Stratford by 10 lengths and connections wasted little time in going for Grade Two honours in the wake of that.
The 10-11 favourite began to look worthy of his estimation early in the race with a neat round of jumping, as he travelled along fluently in the hands of Harry Skelton.
Up the hill he put the race to bed with little fuss, pinging the last and eventually crossing the line 11 lengths to the good of Western Zephyr and Lookaway, continuing a fine two days for his owners, including Sir Alex Ferguson.
Skelton said: “I’ll always defend my horses, but I try not to overhype them because they have enough pressure on them anyway.
“I think with a horse like him and seeing what we’ve seen, you’re very entitled to get excited. He’s done it around the track, he’s got the form in the book and while there will be horses going chasing who achieved more over hurdles than he did, they’ve got to go and prove their suitability.
“We’ve got one tick in the box, I’m sure others will come out and do the same, we’ll go to Sandown now (Henry VIII) where he’ll try tp prove he’s the best two-mile novice chaser in the UK. I’m sure Nicky (Henderson) will have something to say about that with one or two and so will Paul (Nicholls), but I’d be confident enough to say there’s a level to come up to with them, it’s impressive to go and do that around here.”
He went on: “What you’ve got to remember is there’s lots of good horses on both sides of the Irish Sea. Sometimes you don’t get the prep runs into them and you don’t see how good they are until their third runs and sometimes the third run doesn’t go well.
“Sometimes the spring doesn’t go well, look at Nicky last year and that wiped out 30 per cent of the UK’s Cheltenham team in one swoop. It’s hard, but I think we’ve got really good horses in this country. But I always say you want to try competing against them.
“I know Willie (Mullins) is hard to beat and so are Gordon (Elliot) and Henry (de Bromhead), but so are the trainers over here.
“This is the best team I’ve ever had and we’ve always hoped to be in the position we are in.
“There are some with sexier form and if Ballyburn goes chasing everyone will be talking about him. We know how hard it is going to be, but why not dream?”
Paddy Power cut the winner to 16-1 from 40s for the Arkle Trophy back at Cheltenham in March.
