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Trainer Evan Williams is keen to avoid a penalty with the up-and-coming Minella Missile and may head to the Grade 1 Coral Challow Hurdle at Sandown in December.
Winner of his debut under rules at Chepstow, Minella Missile out ran all market expectations when taking the Grade 2 Hyde Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham on Friday, beating hot favourite Captain Teague. There are various options available for the five-year-old, such as a return to Cheltenham for the December meeting or the Betfair Winter Novices' Hurdle at Sandown Park.
However, Williams appears tempted to step the son of Beat Hollow up to Grade 1 level for the Challow Hurdle, thus avoiding a penalty for his Cheltenham Grade 2 victory.
"Going forward, we will be guided by the horse really. It will be very interesting to see how he comes out of that race and we will be guided by him on where we will go from there really," said Williams.
"The obvious thing, and it's not as easy as that, but the obvious thing is to avoid carrying a penalty – and the only way to avoid carrying a penalty is in the Newbury race.
"Against that, he does go well around Cheltenham and Chepstow, which are undulating tracks and completely different to Newbury.
"Cheltenham has so many of those trials, there is an Albert Bartlett trial at the December meeting, or you could go to Sandown for the Winter Novices' Hurdle, which is two-and-a-half miles and a Grade Two.
"So, I don't want to be fixated on going to Newbury, but the Newbury race would seem the obvious next target if we had a target.
"The coming weeks will tell us. We are where we are now, but there will be plenty of others that will come out in the next weeks which will be of a very high quality – plenty of stables are yet to run their good novice hurdlers.
"I guess that is part of the fun of it and part of the jigsaw, and we'll watch what comes out closely and then we can take a view and go from there."
Minella Missile was introduced at 33/1 for the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival with race sponsor Paddy Power, following his win at the November Meeting.
