Monbeg Dude will bid for a repeat victory in the £50,000 Grade Three Murphy Group Handicap Chase at The Open meeting at Cheltenham on November 16 following his encouraging recent reappearance over hurdles.
The eight-year-old came of age when winning last year’s renewal of the extended three mile, three furlong contest by a neck at Cheltenham and followed that up with a similarly gutsy success in the rearranged Welsh National at Chepstow in January. Monbeg Dude is owned by a partnership including rugby stars James Simpson-Daniel, Mike Tindall and Nicky Robinson.
Michael Scudamore’s charge was pulled up in the Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup on his final start of the campaign in March, but returned with third behind impressive winner King’s Palace in the Jools Holland Here On 9th November Novices’ Hurdle last weekend.
Scudamore said: “The aim at the moment is to go for the Murphy Group Handicap Chase which he won last year. He has come out of Saturday’s race in great form and we were expecting him to come on quite a bit for the run, so we were delighted with him.
“I think the winner looked like a real nice one and we didn’t think for a second we could go and win it, but it was a solid performance from a horse who wants three and a half miles over fences on soft ground.
“The plan would be to go back to Cheltenham and then on to Chepstow for another crack at the Welsh National. He is up 10 pounds (138) from last year’s Welsh National, but I still hope he can be competitive because he was quite inexperienced last year and you would think there is a little bit more to come.
“He is nearly 20 pounds higher than he was when he won at Cheltenham last year, so he has got to have improved a fair bit but the way he is at home, both physically and mentally, I hope he has improved.
“He has been away and done a little bit of work on his jumping over the summer and will probably do a little bit more before he runs at Cheltenham, so if he pulls that together you would hope he can find a few lengths there as well.”