RACING:Willie Mullins's star novice hurdler Hurricane Fly has been ruled out of the Cheltenham Festival.
The five-year-old was forced to miss the Deloitte Novice Hurdle recently with an 11th hour problem and Mullins admitted it would be a race against time to make the big meeting.
However, the County Carlow trainer was forced to admit defeat with exactly two weeks to go before the start of the showpiece fixture, and Punchestown will now be the aim.
Mullins said: “Hurricane Fly will not run, he hasn’t made enough progress.”
Mullins had been in a quandary over whether to run him in the williamhill.com Supreme Novices’ Hurdle or the Ballymore Properties Novices’ Hurdle but that decision has now been taken out of his hands.
“He went to to the vets yesterday but we said we would wait until this morning (Tuesday) to see how he rode out and Paul Townend, who rides him all the time, wasn’t happy with his progress and neither was I,” Mullins continued.
“It is disappointing but the hardest thing with a splint is the timing of it and it has come so close to Cheltenham, but he should recover totally from it and we look forward to going to Punchestown with him.”
Despite his absence, Mullins still has a strong team of novices that includes Cousin Vinny and Mikael D’Haguenet but no final decision will be made on running plans until much nearer the time.
“We haven’t made any firm plans yet but Hurricane Fly’s absence means Kempes will now join the Cheltenham team,” the trainer continued.
“I didn’t run him in Naas on Sunday as I wasn’t happy with Hurricane and if I had been happier with Hurricane I probably would have run Kempes there and he would have been a reserve.
“Kempes will probably now run in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle but I haven’t made any firm plans for the other horses yet.
“Quiscover Fontaine is in at Thurles on Thursday and we haven’t decided yet whether to run him there or at Cheltenham. He wants wetter ground and I don’t know if he’ll get that at Cheltenham so we will have to see.
“It’s bad luck with Hurricane Fly but that is the way it works and worse things have happened.”