Sir Gino pulled up with suspected pelvic injury in International Hurdle

On an afternoon when Britain’s National Hunt fans had expected to be looking for potential winners at the festival meeting in March, they left Cheltenham hoping instead for positive news on Nicky Henderson’s Sir Gino, the most exciting prospect in the sport, after he was pulled up with a suspected pelvic injury in the International Hurdle.

Sir Gino went into Saturday’s Grade Two contest as the clear favourite for the Champion Hurdle in March, having gone unbeaten in seven starts including a brilliant novice chase win at Kempton in December 2024.

He was held up last of the four runners as Nemean Lion cut out the running, and was then pulled up immediately by Nico de Boinville, his jockey, shortly after jumping the third-last flight.

“They were able to put him into the ambulance,” Henderson said later. “It’s his right-hind, and it appears to be high up, so there’s no lower limb fracture. It would appear to be a pelvic injury at the moment.

“He has loaded and I’d rather they take him to Three Counties veterinary hospital [in Tewkesbury] without unloading here, and then they can assess and scan and just see where we are. Everybody is fighting.

“Pelvic injuries can be little or big, so we’ve just got to keep everything crossed. We won’t know anymore tonight. They need a chance to assess him so it will be late on, I expect.”

The New Lion, the second-favourite for both Saturday’s race and the Champion Hurdle beforehand, stayed on well up the hill to beat Nemean Lion by a length and a half, but he returned to a subdued winner’s enclosure as fans waited for news about Sir Gino.

“I’m a big fan of this sport,” Dan Skelton, The New Lion’s trainer, said, “and Sir Gino could be the best horse in training, and we just didn’t need that. The team at Seven Barrows have been through hell and back to get him back on track and hopefully he is okay.”

Nicky Henderson, Sir Gino’s trainer, said: ‘They were able to put him into the ambulance. We’ve just got to keep everything crossed.’ Photograph: Steven Paston/PA

The New Lion was cut to around 5-2 for the Champion Hurdle after his win, and Skelton added: “We needed to get a clear round after [falling in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at] Newcastle and Harry [Skelton, The New Lion’s jockey] did exactly what I wanted him to do and held him into the bottom of all the jumps.

“The unanswered question with this horse is the speed angle and I thought he showed a lot of speed at Newcastle despite us ending up on the floor. He showed a lot of speed there as well from turning in to the last, and then from the last to the line.”

Skelton, the clear leader in the race for the 2025-26 National Hunt trainers’ championship, had earlier seen his main Gold Cup prospect, Grey Dawning, finish only third of the four runners behind Spillane’s Tower in the Grade Two Cotswold Chase.

Jack Kennedy was aboard Spillane’s Tower for the first time since Jimmy Mangan’s gelding split Fact To File and Galopin Des Champs in a memorable running of the John Durkan Memorial Chase in 2024, and he oozed confidence throughout on the eight-year-old before quickening past L’Homme Presse on the run up the hill.

This was a significant and impressive return to form for Spillane’s Tower after two lacklustre runs over hurdles so far this season, and he was cut from 50-1 to 10-1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup by Paddy Power, in a market that is still looking for a clear favourite.

“It’s my first [winner in Britain] since Monty’s Pass [in the 2003 Grand National],” Mangan said. “I would have gone back to Ireland a disappointed man if he had put up a poor show today. I suppose you do have to start dreaming of the Gold Cup and he’s in that grade now.”

The Trials Day card concluded in near-darkness after the final race was delayed for around 30 minutes following the discovery of a hole in the turf, prompting an inspection and a reconfiguration of the course. Nicky Henderson withdrew the likely favourite, Act Of Innocence, and the eventual result – a narrow win for Kripticjim over Taurus Bay, in the colours of Harry Redknapp – was announced only after prolonged examination of a photo-finish image taken in the very last of the light.