Sizing Symphony strikes a winning note for De Bromhead at Cheltenham

A NEW jumps season got under way at Cheltenham yesterday, with all roads leading to the Festival next March, and Henry de Bromhead was back in the winner’s enclosure with the latest hot prospect from owner Alan Potts’ Sizing production line.

Potts, who developed a sizing machine for the mining industry, prefixes the names of most of his horses with the word and won this year’s Queen Mother Champion Chase through the top-class Sizing Europe.

Sizing Symphony’s career is still in its infancy and he took a little time to shine over hurdles but arrived on a bright Cotswold afternoon with successive wins at Killarney and Fairyhouse in the bag. Sent off the 5-4 joint favourite under Andrew Lynch for the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle, Sizing Symphony bounded away turning for home to collect by a convincing seven lengths. “I was a pleased with that – he jumped a bit right but Andrew said he was fine when he sent him on,” said De Bromhead. “All through last year we were loving him but we were so disappointed with his first run in a bumper at Christmas.

“He’s a bit more ground-dependent than Europe, he won’t be running on heavy ground. I have loose-schooled him over fences and he was electric.”

This may have been the first meeting at Cheltenham of the new season and the Festival is five months away, but trainers always have it on their mind. De Bromhead went on: “He might have one more run – I’m not sure about travelling him back here twice in a month – but we’ll have a think. He might then have a break and hopefully come back here in March.”

Gordon Elliott already has a Festival target planned for Traffic Article (8-1), whose undoubted stamina saw him through the Cheltenham Racecourse iPhone App Novices’ Chase for another Irish victory. “We brought him over for a bit of experience as we’ve always had the four-miler in mind for him,” said Elliott. Paul Nicholls and Ruby Walsh secured the first of what will almost certainly be many Cheltenham winners this season in the squareintheair.com Novices’ Chase. That’ll Do (15-8), one of the stable’s fairly small team of summer jumpers, enjoyed a slice of luck when even-money favourite For Non Stop, who looked to be going just as well, fell at the second-last.

Paint The Clouds (13-8 fav) made it five wins in a row with a gritty performance under Tony McCoy in the Pertemps Handicap Hurdle.