Full steam ahead for Broadway Boy’s Newbury tilt

Confidence is high that Broadway Boy fits the profile to make his presence felt in the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury later this month.

Trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies, the six-year-old announced himself as one of Britain’s leading staying novice chasers last term with some dazzling performances at Cheltenham before the turn of the year.

However, he was never quite the same as the season moved into 2024, with a below-par display in the Hampton Novices’ Chase at Warwick put down to stomach ulcers, while he also missed the Cheltenham Festival following an unsatisfactory scope during the week of the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase.

He was well held when making a final novice start at Aintree later in the spring, but showed more of his old zest when returning to his beloved Prestbury Park last month, finishing third in a competitive contest behind possible Newbury rival, Henry de Bromhead’s Senior Chief.

The Broadway Boy team are hopeful that outing has helped blow away the cobwebs and having begun to turn the screw at home, are anticipating he has all the attributes to thrive in Berkshire on November 30 in a race for which he is 10-1 with sponsors Coral.

“He did his first proper big piece of work back since Cheltenham on Tuesday and it went really well,” said assistant trainer Willy Twiston-Davies.

“He looks to be on a nice racing weight and hopefully everything will be in his favour to ensure a big run at Newbury.

“We’re all over them (the issues from earlier in the year) now and I don’t know what happened at Warwick, we should probably have drawn stumps after that. We persisted which was probably a bit silly but he’s A1 now and we will just target our races accordingly.

“Second-season novices have a good record in the Coral Gold Cup and we’re looking forward to running.”