Fontwell could be favoured next for Potters Charm

A trip to Fontwell for the Star Sports National Spirit Hurdle appears the preferred next move for Potters Charm after plundering a valuable prize at Windsor recently.

Kept to the smaller obstacles to be campaigned as a Stayers’ Hurdle candidate this term, Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies’ seven-year-old finished fourth in the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot just before Christmas but thrived back down at an intermediate distance during the Winter Million weekend.

Connections are now considering remaining at the two-and-a-half-mile trip, where Potters Charm could forego his entry at the Cheltenham Festival in favour of Fontwell on February 22 and then Aintree in the spring.

Willy Twiston-Davies said: “He’s come out of Windsor really well, a lot of his owners have been on holiday so we’ve not made any decisions just yet, but at the moment we would be thinking to go to the National Spirit and then to Aintree.

“I thought he showed a lot of pace at Windsor, they went slow and then sprinted and he put them to bed pretty nicely.

“He won a Grade One over two miles as a novice and I think we’ll be sticking at two and a half miles rather than going three miles again. In hindsight you watch the Long Walk and he travelled like the winner until the home straight, but just didn’t quite see the trip out.

“We’ll keep the entry there for the Stayers’ Hurdle and look at Cheltenham, but at the moment I think Fontwell and then Aintree looks the obvious thing to do.”