Sport

Business drifts in betting as rain is forecast

With the prospect of heavy rain at Kempton Park in the next few days See More Business continues to drift in the betting for …

Fri Dec 24 1999 - 00:00

With the prospect of heavy rain at Kempton Park in the next few days See More Business continues to drift in the betting for rain is Monday's Pertemps King George VI Chase and is out to 9 to 4 with Coral.

Last season's Cheltenham Gold Cup winner heads the 12 declarations made yesterday for the Christmas highlight, for which there were no defections at the final stage.

The Paul Nicholls-trained gelding, the ride of Mick Fitzgerald, will be joined by stablemate Double Thriller (Joe Tizzard) in the Grade One three-mile contest.

Those lining up against the Nicholls duo include Looks Like Trouble, winner of the Royal and SunAlliance Chase at Cheltenham in March for trainer Noel Chance, who was third to See More Business at Wetherby on his seasonal return and has won in a canter at Sandown since.

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Looks Like Trouble is 7 to 4 favourite with Coral and Chance also runs Boardroom Shuffle in the race.

Dorans Pride is set to make the journey to Kempton for the £110,000 feature. He takes his chance having looked likely to stay at home for the Ericsson Chase at Leopardstown on Tuesday.

Michael Hourigan's charge will fly from Shannon to Luton on Sunday afternoon on a flight arranged by Kempton Park.

Hourigan said yesterday: "At the moment the King George is the target. We will keep him in the Ericsson just in case."

One leading fancy is the Alan King-trained Go Ballistic, runner-up to See More Business in the Gold Cup, who was a promising second in the Coral Rehearsal Chase at Chepstow earlier this month.

King will also be represented by Mulligan while Dr Leunt, Go Ballistic's conqueror at Chepstow, and Tremallt, who unseated his rider when going well in the same race, are also in the line-up.

Challenger du Luc, second to See More Business in this event two years ago, is Martin Pipe's sole contender, while Djeddah will travel from France.

The going at Kempton remains good, good to soft in places. Rain is forecast for today but it is expected to be a dry weekend.

Looks like Trouble showed his well-being when teaming up with big-race jockey Norman Williamson in Lambourn yesterday morning.

As he put the final touches on the gelding's preparation four days ahead of the Kempton contest, Chance sounded his growing fears about the realistic prospect of soft ground for his seven-year-old.

Mindful that Looks Like Trouble has not yet encountered soft ground, Chance is keeping his fingers crossed that if the forecasted inch or so of rain falls during Christmas Eve it will then be followed by a dry weekend.

Commenting on his charge's routine work-out on the Faringdon Road gallop, Chance said: "It was nice for Norman to have a sit on him close to the race but it wasn't anything serious, just a swinging canter and good healthy exercise as the horse is as fit as he needs to be."

Timmy Murphy has been booked to partner Boardroom Shuffle.