L’Eau Du Sud is king in Henry VIII Chase

L’Eau Du Sud maintained his impressive start to the season when winning the Betfair Henry VIII Novices’ Chase at Sandown.

Sent off the 10-11 favourite having impressed greatly last time out at Cheltenham, this time he had to win in a totally different fashion.

Gordon Elliott had sent two promising types over for the Grade One in Down Memory Lane and Touch Me Not so it was never going to be a walk in the park.

However, Down Memory Lane never looked happy from an early stage in his jumping and Mark Walsh was always niggling him along.

Touch Me Not put the pace to the race but one bad mistake down the back straight brough him back to the others and Harry Skelton appeared to going much better on the grey.

L’Eau Du Sud met the second last all wrong, though, and despite reasserting his advantage over Touch Me Not on the run to the last he again landed on all fours so it was to his credit in testing ground that he picked up once again to win by three and three-quarter lengths for Dan Skelton.

“The ground was hard work, it’s deep now. He bunny hopped the last but he’s a tough horse and has won ugly when he needed to,” Harry Skelton told ITV Racing.

“He’ll have a little break now and will probably have one run before the Arkle.

“He’s a fit horse, you’ve got to run them when they are fit and well and that is what Dan does, you take your chances but he’s shown today ground doesn’t really matter.

“I think he’s got it all this horse. On some nice spring ground I think he’ll really enjoy it.

“He’s beaten two really good horses today and Soul Icon is no slouch. He’s thrown our hat in the ring there but I’m sure there’s plenty to come across the Irish Sea.”

Betfair cut the winner to 6-1 from 9-1 for the Arkle in March.

Dan Skelton said: “I’m delighted as it’s the first time he’s been in a bit of a fight. He was very unpolished over the last and second last but that’s just him getting it done over the jumps in pretty sticky ground.

“The whole way around he was travelling particularly well. He definitely wants that slightly better ground to be seen at his absolute best.

“We’ll give him his flu vaccination, we’ll give him a little freshen up and he’ll either go for the Kingmaker at Warwick or he could go to Super Saturday (at Newbury). It depends where Harry’s got to be.

“I want to get him at his absolute peak for the Arkle and I think, after that, we’ve got a pretty exciting contender.”

Elliott, watching on from Navan, told Racing TV of his runners: “Touch Me Not almost took a fence with him so he did very well to finish second.

“I thought for Down Memory Lane it all just happened very fast for him. When he won the last day he practically jumped round on his own.

“He didn’t jump badly he just jumped very carefully the whole way and I’d say he did well to finish where he did. There’ll be other days for him, hopefully.”