Injured Iroko back in Style
Last season’s Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle winner, Iroko, looks set to make a valiant return from injury at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.
The Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero-trained six-year-old made an impressive start to life over fences at Warwick in early November before Greenall ruled him out for the season due to a foot injury.
However, the progressive chaser has recovered from his setback quicker than expected, allowing connections to consider which race he could run in at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.
“Personally, I’d like to go to the Turners,” Greenall said. “In an ideal world, we’d go to Kempton two weeks before Cheltenham for the Pendil Novices’ Chase and then go to Aintree.
“Fitness-wise, he’ll be fine. He’s progressing really well, it’s just whether we feel he is too inexperienced having only had one run over fences.
“I think we will have decided his race by the five-day confirmations. We’ll take him away to do a schooling gallop and we’ll know more then.”
Iroko runs in the silks of JP McManus, an owner who has a strong team of novice chasers this year with the likes of Fact To File and Corbetts Cross.
Greenall expects a decision to be made between all parties in good time: “We’re still quite new to having horses with JP, so I’m not really sure – they seem to run horses against each other, so if we all agree that the Turners is the race then we will run in it.
“He’ll be ready; I would expect him to go to Cheltenham.”
Iroko is a standout 16/1 for the Turners Novices’ Chase while Paddy Power, Coral, and Ladbrokes are as short as 10/1.
