Surrey Quest hoping to beat the weather for Kempton run

Connections are hoping the weather relents sufficiently to allow Surrey Quest to get his progressive chasing career back on track at Kempton Park this weekend.

Once known for being the horse stabled alongside Constitution Hill when trained by Nicky Henderson, he has made headlines in his own right since switching to Toby Lawes, with some fine displays in staying chasing contests.

Agonisingly denied in the Coral Scottish Grand National last spring, he returned with a fine run in defeat at Cheltenham in November, staying on strongly up the hill to enter plenty of notebooks.

However, sent to Newbury over the Christmas period to defend his Mandarin Chase title, he unseated jockey Kevin Brogan before the race could truly develop, leaving his team now searching for the ideal confidence booster to rebuild momentum.

Having decided against subjecting Surrey Quest to a potentially gruelling renewal of the Classic Chase at Warwick, Lawes and owners Surrey Racing have plumped for the three-mile New Bet-In-Race With Coral Handicap Chase at the Sunbury venue.

“We’re up in the air if it will be on, but Kempton is a local course to us and we’re intending to run,” said Clive Hadingham, co-founder of Surrey Racing.

“He obviously made a bad mistake at Newbury, but he didn’t go down and was fine and ran the rest of the race without his jockey on his back.

“He’s fine and ready to go again and it’s just been a case of finding the right race again. He was trained for the Mandarin and was going really well and although it’s hard to say were we would have finished, I’d like to think we would have been competitive.

“We just thought while he’s well let’s get him back out again. We gave him a week off to make sure he was physically fine and he is. Kevin has ridden him and all is good.”

He went on: “We did think about the Classic Chase at Warwick, but it’s going to be pretty attritional and there is going to be plenty more attritional races for him later in the season so why are we doing that now.

“We know he probably wants further than three miles round a flat track like Kempton, but we don’t want him to turn into a slow four-and-a-half-mile plodder and he needs to keep being able to jump at a bit of a quicker pace in his armoury.

“Three miles on softish ground will still be a bit of a stamina test I would have thought and we think it is the right race for him for a confidence booster after the mistake at Newbury. We’ll go there with confidence, soft ground will suit us and there is plenty in our favour.”