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UK: Quito De La Roque Team Bullish About Lexus Bid

3 minute read

will be bidding for a sixth consecutive win when he lines up for Wednesday's Lexus Chase and trainer Colm Murphy is confident of a big run.

Quito De La Roque now a seven-year-old, has been beaten just once in his last eight starts and was a gutsywinner last time out in the JNwine.com Champion Chase at Down Royal in November and faces good opposition at Leopardstown in the form of Joncol and John Durkan winner Rubi Light.

The Lexus favourite can enhance his Cheltenham Gold Cup claims on Wednesday and Murphy said: "He's very well after his break. He's very versatile ground-wise. He's gone on good and on very heavy ground. We're very hopefulof a big run."

The stable enjoyed success at Leopardstown's Christmas meeting on Tuesday when Big Zeb landed a third victory in the Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase.

Big Zeb, who won the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2010, is now a general 9-2 chance for this season's renewal behind ante-post favourite Sizing Europe.

Galeforce winds are the main concern for the third day of Leopardstown's meeting, with rain also forecast overnight.

The ground description was changed from yielding to soft to good to yielding before the first race on Tuesday after another dry night and is not expected to change significantly for Wednesday despite a forecast of up to eight millimetres of rain.

Racing manager Nessa Joyce said: "Met Eireann are forecasting between five and eight millimetres tonight. That's not very significant. The big concern is that tomorrow will be a colder, much windier day and I think Met Eireann are going to putting out a gale warning later this evening. We'll have to keep a close eye on that."