Another disappointing field size for a feature Saturday race is guaranteed after only five horses were left in at the five-day stage for the JLT Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot.
A raft of small fields dominated the jumping action last weekend, and the Grade One contest won four times by Baracouda and on three occasions by Big Buck's has lost seven of its 12 entries from the last forfeit stage.
However, among the five is the Nick Williams-trained Reve De Sivola, winner of the last two renewals.
In two outings in France this season the nine-year-old has been well beaten, but Williams may also run Aubusson, an impressive winner of the Fixed Brush Hurdle at Haydock.
Paul Nicholls has taken out the impressive Newbury scorer Silsol but could be represented by Zarkandar, winner of a Grade One in France on his last outing.
Alan King's Medinas, who took advantage of a below-par More Of That at Newbury, will be looking to capitalise on any weaknesses from the others.
Dell' Arca, who has been novice chasing without success this season for David Pipe, completes the quintet.
Among others taken out were Nicky Henderson's Beat That and Blue Fashion and Willie Mullins' Briar Hill and Zaidpour.
reopens
Pipe said on his website that he has always fancied running Dell' Arca over further.
"We have Dell' Arca in the race and while he has performed creditably over fences this term, a return to timber over this longer trip could be on the card," he said.
"Despite winning the Greatwood Hurdle over the minimum trip he has always looked as worth trying over further and while he has it to do on official figures, this looks a decent opportunity to give him a go."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article