Cheltenham Festival:The ante-post betting for the Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdle was on Monday given yet another shake-up after leading fancy Solwhit emerged a major doubt for next Tuesday's Cheltenham Festival highlight.
A winner of three of his four starts this season, including the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown in January, he could be forced to miss out after scoping dirty just over a week before the race.
Trainer Charles Byrnes said: “Things are very much in the balance with Solwhit as he has scoped dirty and we’ve put him on antibiotics.
“The plan had been for him to travel over to England on Saturday morning but that will have to be put on hold now.
“We’ll have to scope him again later in the week and see how it’s looking.
“It’s obviously very disappointing as he has never given any indication anything was wrong, apart from one cough.
“We’re just going to see how he reacts to the antibiotics and make a late decision.”
Solwhit drifted out to as big as 29-1 on Betfair soon after the news was broken, but is now trading at between 13-1 and 14-1 on the exchange.
Betfair spokesman Tony Calvin said: “The Champion Hurdle has been one of the most volatile ante-post markets in recent years.
“Solwhit now becomes the fourth horse to deliver favourite-backers a potential hammer blow, following the woes, setbacks and defeats that have befallen one-time market-leaders Hurricane Fly, Binocular and Zaynar.”
Sky Bet have pushed Solwhit out to 5-1 from 4-1 and clipped Go Native into 3-1 favourite from 100-30, although his trainer Noel Meade admits the decision to start watering the track by Cheltenham officials is not welcome news.
“I’m sure a lot of trainers of soft-ground horses will welcome the news, but then there are those like us that don’t really want it,” said the trainer.
“But he handled it last year in the Supreme when it was good to soft and it had rained on the Monday night.
“The danger is if they get it wrong and over-water or it rains heavily overnight, you just never know.
“The ground at Kempton was against him — it was tacky — and that’s what he doesn’t want.
“”He’s in fine form at the moment anyway and we are just counting down the days.“
Sky Bet have also cut last year’s winner Punjabi to 6-1 from 7-1.
Stable companion Zaynar is 13-2 (from 15-2) and recent Kempton all-weather winner Starluck 12-1 from 16s.
Sky Bet’s Matt Doyle said: “It’s a crying shame for us as the two front-runners in the Champion Hurdle market were outstanding results in our ante-post book.
“It now looks as if we’ll just have Go Native running for us next Tuesday.”