Cheltenham Festival heroine Love Envoi set £60,000 handicap hurdle target

Cheltenham Festival winner Love Envoi is set to run in a handicap hurdle for the first time on Saturday week, with connections eyeing a £60,000 event on Tingle Creek day at Sandown for her reappearance.

The Coral Hurdle at Ascot had been under consideration for Love Envoi but the likelihood of quicker ground at the entry stage last Monday led to the Harry Fry-trained mare being aimed at the 2m handicap hurdle that precedes the Grade 1 chase at the Esher track.

Love Envoi’s success last season, when her five wins included the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at the festival, proved a significant boon for her owners Noel Fehily Racing Syndicates, which has 25 horses to run this jumps season and ten people involved in each horse.

Fehily, who runs the syndicates with fellow former jump jockey Dave Crosse, said: “When good to firm featured in the going description at Ascot last Monday we never bothered entering her and we’re likely to go to Sandown, a track we know she likes, next weekend. Everyone is very happy with her and we just want to get her going again when the ground is suitable.

“It’s the hope she’ll be good enough to go down the Mares’ Hurdle route. Her success last season had a massive impact on interest in our syndicates. We’re all in the job to buy horses good enough to win at Cheltenham and to get one as good as her is brilliant.

“When you’re involved with a horse like Love Envoi, you want more of them. I love seeing people come into the game who have never been involved before, they’re getting a taste of it and really enjoying it. It gives me a great kick.”

Tahmuras (left): Tolworth aim for recent Haydock winnerCredit: Grossick Racing

Love Envoi's owners, who enjoyed 21 winners last season, will bid for a top-level breakthrough with novice hurdler Tahmuras in the new year.

The Paul Nicholls-trained five-year-old was an impressive winner of the Listed Betfair-sponsored Newton Novices’ Hurdle at Haydock on Saturday and connections are targeting the Unibet Tolworth Novices’ Hurdle at Sandown on January 7, a race won by Constitution Hill last season.

Fehily, who picked out Tuesday's Southwell winner Queens Rock and bumper horses Helnwein and Top Kap as three youngsters for Racing Post readers to follow, said: “Tahmuras has been brilliant this season and it will be interesting to see if he can mix it in that class in the Tolworth.

“He’s very good, we’ve always liked him and he’s probably exceeding my expectations of him this season. He’ll go up in trip and jump fences in time – he’s very exciting.”

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