NICKY Henderson will be hoping to have two live bullets to fire at next season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Santini was an admirable second this time round and should be joined by his stablemate and RSA winner Champ if all goes to plan next season.
With the season done and dusted, Henderson is already planning ahead for both of his staying supremos and will likely take a well-trodden path with Champ.
He said: “I don’t see why Champ can’t be a Gold Cup horse next season. He is top class, there is no doubt about it.
“There is every chance we could use the intermediate chase at Sandown for Champ which we won this season with Santini.
“There are not a million races for these sort of horses. It would be a perfectly good place to start.”
While not surprised Champ left his previous fall behind, Henderson was taken aback by the victory at Cheltenham, as he still had more than eight lengths to find on both Minella Indo and Allaho after the last.
He added: “It wasn’t a surprise that he won, as we all knew that he could do that.
“He had done nothing wrong all season, he just had that one fall at Cheltenham. I wanted to run him again before the Festival, but I never had the opportunity to go anywhere.
“Where all that came from at the end, I don’t know. It was an extraordinary performance from the horse and from Barry Geraghty.”
For Champ to be a genuine contender in next year’s Gold Cup, for which he is general 14-1 chance, Henderson believes there is one thing he needs to improve on.
He continued: “We have got one area we need to improve on and that is we have got to brush up his jumping and we can do that.
“He is OK at doing it, but he has just got his own way of doing it. It just needs to be sharpened up.”
The Seven Barrows maestro believes Santini ran a cracker in the Gold Cup to finish second and it was a case of what could have been with a couple of things not suiting him on the day.
He said: “He ran the race of his life. A bit softer ground could have worked well, but there was no excuses.
“That was only his sixth start over fences in his life and his third time around Cheltenham and he has not put a foot wrong.
“He is big, raw horse that has the potential to win the Gold Cup, which he will be aimed at again.”
While Henderson has mapped out a potential early season plan for Champ, he remains undecided which route to take with Santini.
He said: “I don’t really see the Betfair Chase suiting him or the King George, but we will have to see as it is all a long way off.
“It is to premature to say where he will go, as plenty of things can happen between now and the autumn.”
One thing Henderson believes could have assisted Santini in the Gold Cup was a stronger pace – something 2018 winner Native River would almost certainly have provided had he not missed the race through injury.
He said: “When Native River came out of the race I thought, ‘good, that will slow it down’ – but in hindsight it would have been a good thing for us.
“A good gallop would have set it up better for us, but it wasn’t the case.”
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