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Chianti Classico’s assignment at Cheltenham on Friday should help provide his trainer Kim Bailey with a clearer picture as to what the remainder of his season will hold.
A winner of the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival last season, the Kim Bailey-trained progressive chaser appeared to take another step forward when defying top-weight in the competitive Sodexo Gold Cup at Ascot on his seasonal return in November.
Kim Bailey's charge was in line for a first taste of the Grand National course in last Saturday's Becher Chase, but with Storm Darragh's strong winds forcing Aintree's meeting to be abandoned, the seven-year-old has instead been rerouted to run in the Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Coming Soon Handicap Chase at Cheltenham on Friday, for which he is a general 2/1 favourite.
"It's been very frustrating," said Bailey on Sky Sports Racing. "The whole plan was to go to Aintree last weekend, so this is a bit of a fallback situation, but he's going to go off favourite for a decent race,"
"Ciaran (Gethings) schooled him this morning. He's never sat on the horse before today and he'll get on very well with him, I'm sure."
The Grand National remains very much on the cards for Kim Bailey's staying chaser at this stage, but should he defy a current mark of 157 at Prestbury Park, connections would almost be forced to look at a Gold Cup trial, with both the Denman and Cotswold Chase's potential targets.
Bailey added: "We'd rather hoped he'd have the opportunity to go to Aintree last weekend to find out whether he'd handle the track. I don't doubt he wouldn't, but from our point of view it would have been quite nice to see how he did handle it,"
"I said after he won at Cheltenham that he's an ideal horse for the Grand National and I still believe he is. The problem is if he wins on Friday, he's going to back up the handicap again. He's been carrying 12st and he's not the world's biggest horse.
"He has another 8lb or 9lb to go before he becomes a Grade One horse, so we'll learn a lot on Friday. If he gets beat on Friday the Grand National will be his number one target, if he happens to go and win, we can start thinking of other days.
"You've got the Denman Chase and the Cotswold Chase. It's a big day for him on Friday."
Bailey also provided an update on Does He Know, who is a general 13/2 chance for the bet 365 Handicap Chase at Doncaster on Saturday after two pleasing fourth-place finishes in competitive events at Cheltenham this season.
He said: "Does He Know is in a good place. Ciaran Gethings rode him work this morning and schooled him and that all went very well, so he's on course for Saturday.
"He's a proper old-fashioned type of chaser really because he seems to get better as he gets older. His two runs this season have been very good – he's done nothing wrong.
"Last time he probably didn't quite get the trip. I know he got three and a quarter miles before at Cheltenham, but that was on quite quick ground and it probably wasn't the world's greatest race.
"He's incredibly versatile (ground-wise). He's not the biggest and he's a quirky individual, but he's got such a huge amount of talent.
"I'm really pleased with him, and he's been an absolute gem for us."