Hewick plans in limbo as softening ground rules out Betfair bid

All plans are on hold for Hewick after trainer John ‘Shark’ Hanlon made the difficult decision to withdraw his stable star from the Betfair Chase at Haydock.

Last season’s King George VI Chase hero made the trip the Merseyside with high hopes off the back of finishing a close second to Envoi Allen in the Ladbrokes Champion Chase at Down Royal last month.

In the immediate aftermath of that narrow defeat, Hanlon suggested Hewick would either defend his King George crown at Kempton on Boxing Day or run in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown two days later.

However, with plans beyond the start of December complicated by the trainer’s impending suspension, he instead made an early trip across the Irish Sea, only for rain during the morning and early afternoon ultimately scuppering his participation.

Hanlon said: “If the rain hadn’t have come in the last hour I think we’d have been all right. I walked the track this morning and I was happy enough with it, but we just didn’t need rain and it came.

“There’ll be other days, but it’s disappointing because he was in real good form and had a good run the last day.

“It’s the right decision for the horse not to run.”

From December 1, Hanlon will serve a six-month suspension, with the possibility it could later be reduced to three, after a Referrals Committee of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board ruled he had acted in a manner that “caused significant prejudice to the integrity, proper conduct and good reputation of the sport of racing” in the removal of a dead horse from his yard earlier this year.

That ban will, of course, mean Hewick is unable to run in the King George in Hanlon’s name and the trainer is not ruling out the possibility of sending his stable star straight for another crack at the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March.

He added: “Now the rain has come we could have rain for two or three months, so I’d say nearly Cheltenham could be his next run, but we have no decision made.

“I have nothing planned yet. In the next three days we’ll see what we’re going to do.

“We’ll train him for a King George, but we’re just going to have to wait and see. If we ran him today I had no intention of doing anything else (before Cheltenham), but we’re going to have to see now.”