Ian Williams 'devastated' as Weird Al must miss Cheltenham Festival

Weird Al will miss Wednesday's RSA Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, for which he had been third-favourite. The seven-year-old has suffered a suspected stress fracture to a cannon bone on the gallops at the Worcestershire yard of his trainer, Ian Williams. "He will have an MRI scan next week, which should confirm the injury," Williams said. "I have never been so devastated about a horse before and I'm mortified for the owners. "This wasn't any race meeting, it was Cheltenham. He was to have gone there for the RSA, in an exceptional year, with an excellent chance in my book. We still have him and thankfully the prognosis from our team of vets is very good." Despite the news that such a serious contender had been ruled out, Paul Nicholls remained unwilling to commit The Nightingale to run in the RSA. His horse, unbeaten in two starts over fences, is one of 16 entries but the champion trainer is concerned about exposing him to such a hard race so early in his career. "He's all right to run if I want to, but I'm not actually desperate to run him because I'm thinking next year as much as anything with him. I'd still think the wisest move is to go to Aintree with him and then look after him for next year," Nicholls said. "If I knew he would definitely get the trip and was a real, real stayer, you'd go, but there's still a doubt and if I give him a really hard race there, that might not help me. So I've got to discuss it with Graham [Roach, the owner] and see. If a couple of the top ones didn't run, then you'd have a think about it. I'd say, very unlikely." Nicholls had three winners here this afternoon, including Red Harbour, whose 5lb penalty might be enough to get him into the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham on Friday. The trainer said the horse "might well" run in the Festival race, for which he is a 10-1 shot. Qaspal, the impressive winner of today's Imperial Cup, is the new favourite for the Martin Pipe, as well as for the County Hurdle, which will also take place at Cheltenham on Friday. The County is the favoured option for connections, who will pick up a £75,000 bonus from bookmakers Paddy Power if he can win at the Festival, but he is still so far down the weights that he may not make the final field for either race. Sarah Hobbs, wife of Qaspal's trainer, Philip, pointed out that the yard had won both the Imperial Cup and the County Hurdle with Moody Man in 1990, the year before a cash bonus was first offered for winning both races. Tony McCoy had boiled himself down to make the weight of 10st 3lb on Qaspal, 2lb below the lowest weight at which he had ridden in the past year. Normally a gaunt figure, he was coughing and grey as he discussed his victory in the winner's enclosure. "They went real fast and it just meant that he was pretty much flat out all the way," the champion jockey said, "but the one thing he was going to do was come home well. He just nodded a bit on landing [at the second-last] but in fairness to him, from there on, the more we started to climb, the more he started to pick up." McCoy also passed on word of Binocular, an 8-1 chance for Tuesday's Champion Hurdle after he was finally confirmed as a definite runner. "He schooled really well on Wednesday morning and I rode him work yesterday and I was happy with him, didn't see any reason why he shouldn't run. "On Wednesday, it was probably the best he's schooled or jumped all season. He hasn't had a great preparation but at the same time it's the Champion Hurdle. He's entitled to take his chance." Binocular's trainer, Nicky Henderson, also offered hope that the horse might end a disappointing season on a high. "I think we have reason to hope that he has [turned the corner]. The way he schooled the other morning, that was what we were waiting to see. The only thing that's been missing has been his hurdling technique, which used to be spectacular." Tactfully, Henderson declined requests to put his three Champion Hurdle contenders into any kind of pecking order. "I've got three chances, is my only attitude to it. I'd love to see [Punjabi] retain it. I would love to see Binocular win because I always, in my heart of hearts, felt that he would win last year. And we've always believed in him and now there are doubters and we always like proving doubters wrong. "And Zaynar is a very likeable, very honest horse. I've got three shots and I've got to say to the owners that any one of them can win." The trainer deplored the betting public's seeming coolness towards the reigning champion, Punjabi, also an 8-1 shot for Tuesday's race. "He lacks that sort of sex appeal. If I painted him pink, he'd probably be everybody's favourite." Henderson made a point of sympathising with Weird Al's connections, saying: "I feel sorry for everybody who goes through this. We've got to go back tonight and go through all my lot and we know what's going to happen. There'll be catastrophes everywhere and there'll be a lot of tears before it starts, let alone before it finishes." Running plans have been clarified for a number of the trainer's horses that held multiple entries this week. Dave's Dream will go for the Jewson Novice Handicap Chase rather than the Grand Annual, Quantitativeeasing for the Coral Cup rather than the Neptune and Bellvano for the County rather than the Supreme. With 36 horses expected to run at Cheltenham this week, Henderson faces a challenge to his organisational skills, though he appeared relaxed at the prospect. "If you've got one horse, you've got enough to worry about – with that sort of number, you know there are going to be niggles and cuts and lumps and bumps and sneezes. "And that's why I think we all get absolutely fangled from it. It hasn't been too bad. The cat's still alive. "It's 361 days to put it all together. Jumping has somehow got to the situation where four days is the summit of a racehorse's life. It's something that we're all passionate about. We all know it is the pinnacle of everything that has got to do with this great sport. This is it." Henderson's trio will have to beat Solwhit on Tuesday, as the Irish runner has been declared a likely runner after recovering from a spell of coughing this week. "He scoped clean earlier this morning so he will travel over tonight but obviously we will be monitoring him closely," said his trainer, Charles Byrnes. "It was very strange, because he didn't go off his food and looked well in himself, it was just that he was coughing. There was no virus or anything, none of the other horses have coughed, so it really is a bit of a mystery. "Obviously it is not ideal to have something like this happen so close to the Champion Hurdle but he seems fine now. He'll be monitored on the journey there and when he gets there but the intention is to run and, as long as he's 100%, he will."