Ifiwerearichman taking direct route to Cheltenham

Ifiwerearichman will be heading straight to the Cheltenham for the novices’ handicap chase, trainer Paul Nolan has confirmed.

The seven-year-old is hoping to bounce back from a fall at the last fence in a Punchetown Grade Three earlier this month, just as he was making headway into eventual winner Lecky Watson’s lead.

The Toberona handler has said Ifiwerearichman is fine after the incident but he will not be making a reappearance on track until the Cheltenham Festival, with the two-and-a-half mile contest on March 13 pencilled in for his return.

“Ifiwerearichman was running a cracker the last day and unfortunately he had a fall and we are hoping he’ll go to do the novices’ handicap at Cheltenham,” Nolan said.

“He was (running strong before falling), I thought he looked like he was going to be fourth and then he stayed at it.

“In saying that, he got 5lb for falling at the last, which wasn’t part of the plan! It’s an unfortunate penalty to get when you fall.

“But there wasn’t much more we could run him in, there was nothing else really – he needed to a certain amount of runs to run in one of the handicaps – and we were kind of restricted in where we could go.

“You’d still prefer not to fall, but hopefully he’s fine and that the plan is to go to Cheltenham. It will be straight to Cheltenham.”