Henry's Friend and Ben Jones winning at Ascot© Photo Healy Racing
Ben Pauling is confident Henry’s Friend can bag a major prize before the season is out after finishing a creditable fifth in the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury on Saturday.
The seven-year-old won three of his five novice starts over fences last season, including a Grade Two success at Ascot, and blew away any cobwebs with a Newbury comeback run over hurdles in early November.
Hopes were high ahead of his return to the Berkshire circuit over the weekend and he was beaten only seven and a half lengths by the eventual winner Kandoo Kid. Pauling feels the result could have been even better but for a jumping error at a crucial stage.
“He ran a blinder, he just absolutely routed the third down the back. When you watch it back, Ben (Jones) nearly went over his head and it just knocked him out of his rhythm,” he said.
“He was in a great place and travelling beautifully, but from that point on he just got in deep to a couple of fences and lost his rhythm and his chance of winning.
“He still ran a very nice race and he’s going to be competitive in those sort of handicaps for the remainder of the season.”
Having won at Newbury on his penultimate start, stablemate Bowtogreatness also had the option of running in the Coral Gold Cup, but instead travelled to the north east to contest Saturday’s Rehearsal Chase at Newcastle.
However, after being taken on for the lead early by the Venetia Williams-trained winner Frero Banbou, the eight-year-old weakened quickly and was eventually pulled up by Kielan Woods.
“That was an absolute disaster,” said Pauling.
“We’ve spent this whole season getting him settled and riding him from the front at home because we kept trying to drop him in and he kept being too keen.
“We made all at Newbury and I was torn between going back to Newbury or going to Newcastle at the weekend and I made the wrong decision.
“I know Venetia’s horse that was sat upsides us has gone on to win the race, but he wasn’t doing a tap and was just lobbing along, whereas he made our lad incredibly keen and he ran with the choke out for two and a half miles and was pulled up two furlongs later.
“He is a quirky horse with loads of ability, so we’ll go back to the drawing board and just try to get him to settle again.”
