Cheltenham Festival news: Vroum Vroum Mag cut for Ryanair glory

The Jonjo O’Neill trained gelding, who won the World Hurdle 2014, has won both his starts over fences in the manner of a very exciting prospect and was among 14 entries revealed yesterday for the showpiece contest.

However, O’Neill today said he was an unlikely starter as Geraghty will be claimed to ride at Leopardstown on Saturday and he doesn’t want to break the excellent partnership he has with the eight-year-old ahead of his tilt at the RSA.

More of That is now likely to head to Kempton or Newbury for his final prep race.

Time running out for Simonsig

Trainer Nicky Henderson had admitted that the next few weeks will be “crucial” for Simonsig if he is to line-up at the Cheltenham Festival.

The 10-year-old has only run once since winning the Arkle in 2013, and shaped as if retaining plenty of ability when chasing home Bobs Worth over hurdles at Aintree in November.

However, the grey has since suffered more problems and Henderson is facing an uphill battle to get him right in time for a crack at either the Queen Mother Champion Chase or Ryanair Chase, for which he priced up at 10/1 and 12/1 respectively with Coral.

Henderson told At The Races: “We’re just going to have to bide our time and see how it goes. We’ve been fighting an uphill battle for quite a while now and we’re just about sort of at decision time to say we either can or we can’t.

“He looks great, but his skeletal design – I don’t know, he must have been put together on a Friday night. They’ve put the engine in and forgot to give him the body to carry it.

“When it’s going it’s unbeatable and we were seeing all that early on in the year, but it’s been terrible stop-start. The next few weeks are crucial.”

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