KEITH REVELEY is waiting for a change in the weather to allow his stable star Tazbar to gain more experience over fences.
The eight-year-old made a winning debut over fences at Musselburgh in November before putting up arguably a career best performance when chasing home Long Run in the Feltham Novices’ Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.
The RSA Chase at the Cheltenham Festival remains Tazbar’s long-term target, but Reveley is hoping to give his charge some more match practice in the interim.
‘‘He came out of Kempton in great form and has just been cantering away in the snow since,’’ said the Saltburn trainer.
‘‘We were over the moon with the run and it was a great effort considering he’d only had the one run at Musselburgh beforehand. Ideally I would liked to have given him another run.
‘‘Kempton takes some jumping but he went round there great and I know he wouldn’t beat the winner what ever happened, but he’s beaten some good horses a long way. I actually thought we might give Long Run a race jumping the second last but he’s just found another gear and gone away from us.
‘‘I know they’re talking about running him in the Arkle and you’d have to say he certainly has the pace and the class for a race like that.
‘‘We were delighted with our lad and we’re just going to have to see what the weather does before we can decide where we go next with him.
‘‘There is a race at Haydock on January 23 that we’ll look at, but we’ll just have to see.’’ ■ With the cold snap continuing the decimate the racing fixture list, the British Horseracing Authority have moved to lessen the damage by adding three further allweather fixtures for next week.
There will be no National Hunt racing in Britain until Tuesday at the earliest with a combination of snow and frost leading to countless abandonments, so BHA officials have added fixtures at Kempton, Lingfield and Southwell.
Kempton’s Monday card will be made up of six races and entries will close at noon today. Declarations must be made by 10am tomorrow.
Additional meetings will also be staged at Lingfield on Tuesday and Southwell on Wednesday, although the details of those cards have yet to be confirmed.
While further all-weather fixtures have been organised, the abandonment of yesterday’s meetings at Lingfield and Kempton are proof that not even they are guaranteed to go ahead.
Although the surface at both venues was raceable, the meetings had to be called off due to a shortage of ambulances.
Saturday’s valuable National Hunt card at Ffos Las has already fallen by the wayside with frost and snow currently taking hold at the Welsh venue.
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