Dan Skelton has reported that December Gold Cup runner-up Madara returned home from Cheltenham with an injury.
The former Sophie Leech inmate travelled smoothly through the contest and it looked just a case of when Harry Skelton wanted to press the button.
However, he jumped markedly to his left at the second last and was outstayed up the hill to be beaten a length by Gemirande.
“Unfortunately, he’s got a little injury, which I think kind of explains why he went left two out, but that’s racing, as they say,” Skelton told Sky Sports Racing.
The trainer also had news of a potential new target for his exciting novice chaser L’Eau Du Sud, winner of the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase at Sandown last time out.
Skelton had been thinking of the Kingmaker Novices’ Chase at Warwick but the Berkshire Winter Million fixture is now looming large.
“L’Eau Du Sud might actually go to Windsor for the Winter Million weekend and the Lightning Novices’ Chase,” said Skelton.
“All those graded novice chases are sort of worth the same, so money wouldn’t dictate where you went.
“He’s won a Grade One and I just feel if we went to Windsor, it might give him a longer gap to work up towards the Arkle, because if you ran him in the Warwick race (February 8), you could do a bit of work but not as much as you can do in seven weeks, so I just think tactically it might work better going that way.
“If Windsor is off, we’ve always got the back-up of Warwick or Newbury. It might just look like Windsor now.”