Henderson left perplexed by Jeriko Du Reponet display

Nicky Henderson was left scratching his head after Jeriko Du Reponet was pulled up on his chasing bow at Sandown.

A high-ranking novice hurdler last term, the five-year-old’s only defeat came in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, a time when the Seven Barrows string were under a cloud and Henderson ended up removing many of his stars from the firing line.

Sent novice chasing this term, he was reported to be excelling in his new discipline at home and was the 8-11 favourite to make a winning start in the Boodles Novices’ Limited Handicap Chase.

However, a somewhat unusual series of events saw the race delayed by almost 10 minutes as the field waited for Jeriko Du Reponet to arrive at the post, before the market leader’s race came to a premature end soon after the fourth-last.

Anthony Honeyball’s Brookie (11-2) eventually edged out Jim Boyle’s Classic Anthem by half a length at the finish.

Henderson, trying to make sense of what happened, said: “It was strange, very strange and this horse has a wonderful temperament. But to saddle today, you would have thought we were trying to break in a lion, it was crazy and totally out of character.

“We then had to resaddle him and take him back up to the saddling boxes. The vet looked at him and listened to him and then checked him again at the start and I said to Nico (de Boinville), if you are not happy when you get down there (don’t take any risks).

“But when he got on him no probs, back to normal, everything was back to normal. He was good to go and I had walked the ground and was happy with that. Everything was good to go apart from pre-saddling.”

Jeriko Du Reponet made an early error as the four-strong field made their way up the home straight for the first time, while it was a further mistake at the last of the track’s famous Railway fences that caused jockey De Boinville to pull stumps.

Speaking to Racing TV, Henderson added: “At the first ditch (where the mistake was made), Altior used to do that every time. It’s just one of those things and they see ditches at home, but it’s probably just a bigger white rail than they have seen and they go ‘oooo help, what do I do here’ and as a consequence you get that enormous big balloon which you have got to be quite clever to survive.

“Nico said he then started to warm back up and was warming up, warming up, warming up all the way down the back and started to get his jumping going until the last of the railways and Nico said you had to see it to believe it – he just slipped from yards out straight into the fence.

“Quite rightly he pulled him up. You can’t take a chance with the horse, but he wasn’t going to win anyway. His confidence by that point had two serious shocks and he wasn’t ready for another one.”

Henderson had seen this race as the ideal platform to set up a shot at the Betfair Henry VIII Novices’ Chase back at Sandown early next month, but Grade One ambitions are on hold for now as connections return to the drawing board.

“He’s a very, very good horse and I seriously believed he would canter round today and we would be talking about coming back here for the Henry VIII,” said Henderson. “I don’t think we’ll be doing that for the time being and we will have to regroup.

“He’s done everything right at home, he’s schooled beautifully and had a gallop at Newbury which was fantastic. He’s done nothing wrong at all and jumped beautifully the whole way through, but there you go. We can always get surprised and fooled and he has done that today in every sense.

“He’s 100 per cent and has pulled up completely sound, but it is a bizarre chapter of circumstances and no one is as disappointed as our team is going to be. We have to live with these things and we have to learn to accept them and correct them and we will.”