Jonbon ready to stake Champion Chase claim

Nicky Henderson is confident Jonbon can finally silence the doubters by making it third time lucky at the Cheltenham Festival in the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase.

The JP McManus-owned nine-year-old has a brilliant record by anyone’s standards, having won 17 of his 20 starts under rules, while he is 12 from 14 over fences.

While all three of his defeats have come at Cheltenham, he was best of the rest behind his esteemed stablemate Constitution Hill in the 2022 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, and 12 months later he bumped into an on-song El Fabiolo in the Arkle.

A shuddering error ultimately led to his odds-on reverse in a rescheduled Clarence House Chase at Cheltenham last year – and having missed last season’s Champion Chase when the Seven Barrows team was under a cloud, Henderson hopes he can prove his status as the king of the two-mile division after settling his Clarence House score at Ascot last month.

“I think he got the recognition he deserved at Ascot. It took a while, when you think he’s won eight or nine Grade Ones,” the trainer said on Monday.

“He’s an entertaining character. He did nothing wrong last year except for make one mistake in the Clarence House at Cheltenham, other than he couldn’t turn up at the Festival and that was a pity.

“I suppose that’s why he’s got forgotten a little bit, because he wasn’t there last year, and in all fairness the Champion Chase last year wasn’t exactly an epic, was it?

“He wasn’t there and El Fabiolo was determined to put holes in fences. It was a bit of a flop race really and if Jonbon had been there, you’d have to say it mightn’t have been the hardest race he ever had.

“But he wasn’t there and I suppose you’ve got to win the Champion Chase and then you can be a champion, and he deserves to.”

When pressed again about Jonbon’s suitability for Cheltenham, Henderson replied: “He’s won two Shloer Chases and you can’t blame the Clarence House defeat on him not acting round Cheltenham. He just made one shocking mistake and he was very lucky to stand up that day.

“He goes round anywhere, we know he loves Sandown but I thought it was a very good performance at Ascot.”

Henderson has another feature-race contender in the shape of Lucky Place, who has made the most of an unplanned second hurdling campaign when collecting Ascot Hurdle and Relkeel Hurdle titles so far.

He bids for the Stayers’ Hurdle at the Festival, but is only present in the division because the stable had so many novice chasing prospects that some had to remain over the smaller obstacles to avoid continually running them against one another.

The trainer explained: “There was a problem that has possibly worked in our favour, he was meant to go novice chasing, he was all schooled up and ready to go, he’d jumped beautifully, but at the time we had a whole string of them.

“It was just trying to find races for them, three of them have ended up going back over hurdles purely because there weren’t the opportunities for them to go over fences

“At the last minute I just popped him in the Ascot Hurdle as there was nowhere to go over fences. He’s just a very, very likeable, straightforward, uncomplicated, nice horse. He’d be very high on my list.”

Jango Baie may step into the big shoes left vacant by Sir Gino, who was Henderson’s Arkle hope before a hind leg infection ruled him out for the remainder of the season.

The misfortune does create an opportunity for his stablemate, however, who won his chasing debut by a good margin and was then beaten a short head in the Scilly Isles at Sandown.

A step up from those two-and-a-half-mile trips was up for discussion, but now Sir Gino is sidelined it seems a step down to two miles for the Arkle is more likely.

Henderson said: “Our original thought was that Jango Baie is probably a two-and-a-half-mile horse and looking at it now, I think he’s more likely to come down rather than go up.

“I’m sure he’d stay three miles and that is the dilemma, but he goes a good gallop and I thought he was really good at Sandown. A short head is a short head, but that was in horrible ground and I thought he jumped beautifully.

“He is accurate and better ground will suit. We were thinking two and a half and go up to three, but Sir Gino has left the Arkle door open from our point of view and I think that’s the way we would be thinking.”

One horse who is a doubtful part of the Cheltenham squad is Joyeuse, an eight-length winner of Newbury’s William Hill Hurdle who may now have the Morebattle at Kelso in her sights.

“The idea is the Morebattle Hurdle, that’s where I’m thinking. It’s a very valuable race,” Henderson said.

“OK, she can’t run in a handicap at Cheltenham because she hasn’t had enough runs, but the Morebattle Hurdle is worth more than the County Hurdle.

“I think a day out in Kelso – we’ll see.”