Matata and company hoping to take advantage of Sir Gino absence

Matata is out to take advantage of the absence of Sir Gino and book his ticket to the Queen Mother Champion Chase when lining up in the William Hill Best Odds Guaranteed Game Spirit Chase at Newbury.

The Grade Two event changed complexion on Friday morning when Nicky Henderson ruled out the odds-on favourite, with Nigel Twiston-Davies’ in-form chaser now having the perfect opportunity to land his third victory of the season and build on an impressive wide-margin success at Windsor recently.

At Windsor Matata was ridden for the first time by J J Slevin, who has made a fine start to his tenure as retained rider for leading owners Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.

Having excelled in unison on that occasion, the Irishman is now hoping the seven-year-old can continue on his upward profile and pick up this prize en route to the two-mile championship at the Cheltenham Festival.

Slevin said: “He was very good in Windsor and he’s been a hard-knocking horse. He was a good novice last year and progressed away through handicaps in the autumn, so he’s on the upgrade.

“It’s strange, but the two-mile division is a bit like the sprinters on the Flat – there’s not as big a jump between a really good two-mile handicapper and a Grade One horse, whereas in the three-mile division it is a big jump.

“He’s still a young horse who hasn’t done a lot wrong and I’d be excited about riding him in a Champion Chase.”

The Twiston Davies team are also represented by Master Chewy who is the mount of Sam Twiston-Davies, while Alan King’s Edwardstone ran out an emphatic 40-length winner of this contest 12 months ago, with the 11-year-old now back to defend his title.

Evan Williams’ Libberty Hunter skipped Ascot’s Clarence House Chase in favour of coming here in anticipation of favourable conditions ahead of his return to graded company, with last year’s Grand Annual runner-up helped by ease in the ground.

Williams said: “It will be a tough race, but hopefully those wintry showers show up as we need that.

“He likes soft ground and the only thing I would say is, we’ve had a bit of frost around the country this week and the ground could be tough going. If we got a shower on top of that it would be a big help.”

On the absence of Sir Gino, he added: “It’s a pity and let’s hope he is OK. I was genuinely hoping to see him again because he was spectacular at Kempton and let’s hope he can get to Cheltenham because we all want to see that.

“It changes the complexity of the race enormously, but the horses that are left in it are still going to be very hard to beat. I would say Sir Gino was going to be impossible to beat, but the boys left are still going to be very, very difficult – they are very good horses and it’s a competitive field.”

The last of five runners is Joe Tizzard’s JPR One who was last seen finishing third in the Tingle Creek at Sandown.