Paris Pike, the ante-post favourite for the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, will miss the Newbury race, it was revealed today.
Ferdy Murphy`s progressive chaser rounded off a successful novice campaign with victory in the Ladbroke Casino Scottish Grand National to earn his 8-1 quote from Ladbrokes for the Hennessy.
However, Murphy said: 'Paris Pike won`t run in the Hennessy. I would have to rush him to get him to Newbury and the Major (Ivan Straker, owner) said we should wait.
'The horse has done better than we thought over the summer and it would take three or four racecourse gallops to get him fit enough for the Hennessy so we`ve decided to give Newbury a miss.
'It will be another month or so before he`s seen out when we`ll be looking at races like the Rowland Meyrick and the race at Leopardstown in February.'
Paris Pike`s main aims remains the Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup.
And the West Witton trainer added: 'He`ll only have two runs before the Gold Cup and then we`ll have a think about things after Cheltenham.'
