Racing: Limestone's Festival aim threatened by coughing

Limestone Lad, the iron horse of Ireland, a byword for toughness, winner of 35 races, five this season and three in December alone, is coughing and a weekend will pass without his presence on the racecourse. What is worse is that Sunday's run in the Boyne Hurdle at Navan was due to be his prep for the Cheltenham Festival. The bleakest view is that the iconic horse at the forefront of Ireland's Festival challenge will struggle to make the meeting.

"I am just hoping Navan is the only thing I have to sacrifice," Michael Bowe, son of the gelding's trainer, James, said yesterday. "There is a bug going around and I couldn't escape it forever. I just wish it had happened at a different time.

"He's eaten his feed, but it's just the cough that's there and we are treating it. Hopefully, with treatment, it will take only a week or two weeks. If that's the case I should be back on track again." The stable's Solerina, an 8-1 shot with Coral for the Royal & SunAlliance Novices' Hurdle, has eluded the cough.

Limestone Lad, William Hill's 9-4 second favourite for the Stayers' Hurdle, behind 15-8 chance Baracouda, missed last year's race due to injury. Bookmakers responded to this latest scare by pushing out his Festival price. Coral reacted to support for Baracouda by easing Limestone Lad to 11-4 from 2-1 and cutting the favourite to 7-4.

"This was building up into the heavyweight clash of the Festival and it would be a crying shame if Limestone Lad has to miss another Stayers' Hurdle," Simon Clare, Coral's spokesman, said.

At the other end of the fragility scale is Right To Reply, Noel Chance's talented but brittle Gold Cup hope who has been off the course for 15 months with leg problems. "He's broken down and won't be going to Cheltenham," Chance reported.

First Love is only a possible for the Royal & SunAlliance Novices' Chase, but made his mark at Folkestone yesterday when he gave the Queen her debut winner over jumps, the first for a reigning monarch since Edward VII's Ambush II's in the early 1900s. He was also Mick Fitzgerald's first winner since injuring an ankle at Taunton three weeks ago.

Emma Lavelle, striving hard to join the leading rank of trainers, added another string to her Cheltenham bow when Palua took Folkestone's maiden hurdle en route to the Royal & SunAlliance Novices' Hurdle.

Racing could have a new regulatory body next year, ending 200 years of Jockey Club administration. The Club itself has initiated the proposal that regulation of the sport be delegated to an independent board in order to bring wider accountability to the role of regulator.

STAYERS' HURDLE Coral: 7-4 Baracouda, 11-4 Limestone Lad, 7-1 Classified, 10-1 Galileo, 12-1 Native Emperor, 16-1 others. William Hill: 15-8 Baracouda, 9-4 Limestone Lad, 8-1 Classified, 9-1 Galileo, 12-1 others.