Henderson confident Jonbon can handle step up in trip for Ascot Chase

Jonbon’s much more amenable nature as he has matured is giving Nicky Henderson confidence the two-five-five-furlong trip of the Betfair Ascot Chase on Saturday will be within his compass.

Now 10, in his younger days Jonbon had a reputation for being a free-sweater and tested Henderson’s skill in keeping all his energy for the track. Nowadays, though, he races in cheekpieces, although Henderson says they are more to block the opposition out than to sharpen him up.

“I’m a bit concerned about the weather like everyone as he’s not madly in love with soft ground,” Henderson said. “He’s going up to a proper trip now for the first time so it’ll be interesting to say the least.

“The natural progression from here is the Ryanair. He won the Clarence House last time at Ascot over two, but stamina won the day when it finally kicked in, so I’d be fairly hopeful of him staying.

“He has won over two and a half at Aintree, but that is a different place altogether. I’m hopeful.”

Reflecting on the early days of a horse that would be behind only the mighty Kauto Star for Grade One chase successes if he can add an 11th top-level victory to his CV, the Seven Barrows trainer told talkSPORT2: “He tested us in his early days, but nowadays he’s much more amenable. You used to have to be terribly careful, but he’s so much  more straightforward and because of that he takes his racing so much better.

“We’ll leave the cheekpieces on. They wake some horses up too much but I don’t think they will with him. He loves to be in front, we don’t have to do it and over this distance you can ride more conservatively, but the pieces just block everyone else out of his mind. That’s the idea anyway.”

Standing in his way is the Paul Nicholls-trained Pic d’Orhy, winner of this Grade One for the past two seasons but well beaten by Jango Baie, a stablemate of Jonbon, last time out.

“This is his cup final in a lot of ways,” Nicholls told Racing TV. “He’s won the race the last two years, he’s in great shape, he’s fresh, the horses are in form so we’re looking forward to it.

“It’s no mean feat trying to beat Jonbon, but for Jonbon this is probably as far as he’s gone and on testing ground – I always thought he wanted better ground, so we’ll see.”

Alan King’s Edwardstone got back to winning ways in the Silviniaco Conti Chase at Kempton Park last month.

His rider Tom Cannon said: “It was brilliant for everyone he got his head back in front at Kempton and I think everyone is aware we’ve not got too many days left with him.

“He’s up against it, but last time he was there to pick up the pieces and if something like that happens again there is no reason he won’t be there or thereabouts.

“Good ground is probably what he really wants and this wouldn’t be ideal, but he probably hasn’t run on this much as when he was a younger horse you didn’t want to risk him on it so we had a horse for the end of the season.

“He’s there to take his chance, he did very well at Kempton and we’ll play for third and see what happens.

“He’s been a great horse for me and the whole of Alan’s team. I never have, but people can take it for granted a little bit when you have them and they leave a big hole when they are gone.”