Glorious Goodwood hero Lil Rockerfeller switches to fences

Glorious Goodwood to Uttoxeter is not the most commonly trodden path but it is the route taken by smart hurdler Lil Rockerfeller for his debut over fences on Sunday.

Neil King's stable star bolted up under champion jockey Silvestre de Sousa at Goodwood on his latest appearance in August, taking advantage of a lenient Flat handicap mark, but chasing has been a long-term plan for the seven-year-old, a Grade 2 winner over hurdles who was also second in the 2017 Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

He faces seven rivals in Uttoxeter's Gordon Horner 85th Birthday Beginners' Chase (4.05).

King said: "His schooling has been very good. He did plenty of it in the spring and he jumped really nicely when Wayne Hutchinson came to school him recently.

"He's in great heart. After Goodwood he had a month to himself to freshen up and this has been pretty much the target since.

"I'd think it will be beautiful ground there after the rain today and Uttoxeter is a good track and a nice place to start for novices, so I think that's why it's a decent-sized field."

Simply Ned ready to roll

Grade 1-winning chaser Simply Ned makes his seasonal return at Kelso for the fifth successive year with trainer Nicky Richards having plotted a familiar route afterwards for the evergreen 11-year-old.

Richards’ stable favourite landed the £40,000 feature NSPCC School Service Handicap Chase in 2014 and 2015 and has been runner-up for the past two years but the trainer is more than hopeful he can get back in the winning groove.

He said: “He has done grand over the summer and is in very good nick as we've not been held up with the firm ground, which is making life fairly difficult for some other trainers and racecourses around the country.

“This race is a great starting point and the harder they go the better for him as it'll help blow any little cobwebs away. He's ready to run but that's not say he won’t improve a little for the race as we have bigger things on the horizon."

Richards added: “As long as everything goes to plan at Kelso he'll head to Cheltenham for the Grade 2 Shloer Chase before going back to Ireland over Christmas for another tilt at the Grade 1 chase he rightly got in the stewards’ room last year after finishing second to Min, who crossed him on the run to the line.”

Among Simply Ned’s four rivals this year is the David Pipe-trained Vaniteux, stepping back in distance after finishing third over three miles at Perth last month, along with and Theflyingportrait, winner of the prize two years ago, and Vosne Romanee, who has won both starts this season.

Blink and you'll miss it

Before racing at Kelso the 15th running of the Annual Border Principals is scheduled to take place. The four-furlong dash features 14 riders, each of whom represented their town this year in the Ridings, which celebrates the riding of the boundaries that has taken place for centuries between towns in the Scottish Borders.

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