Shark Hanlon says he hopes to be back training at the end of February after his 10-month suspension for transporting a dead horse in public view in an open trailer was cut to six months on appeal.
The Irish trainer can apply to have the final three months of the ban, which starts on December 1, suspended providing he meets certain conditions including not participating in any training related activities. He was filmed towing the animal on a flat trailer through a village in County Kilkenny in June.
“It’s been a hard few weeks for us,” said Hanlon. “I’m hoping we will be back at the end of February. I’d like to thank my own legal team for looking after me and my sponsors and owners for staying with me. We’re going to have to put 2024 behind us and move on to 2025.”
Hanlon, who gave Rachael Blackmore her first chances and sent over Hewick, the £800 horse, to win last year’s King George at Kempton, sold 15 horses earlier this week. “We sold some of our horses and we have some left,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of horses for the winter – we have more summer horses than winter horses and it’s been that way for a while.”
Hewick, meanwhile, will go to either Down Royal or Wetherby next month. If he is to defend his King George title it will have to be with another trainer.
“In the next couple of weeks we will have a discussion about what we are going to do with him,” Hanlon explained.
His Irish colleagues wasted little time getting off the mark at the first Cheltenham fixture of the winter yesterday when Gavin Cromwell won the William Hill Top Price Novice Chase with Path D’oroux but the most impressive winner was Dan Skelton’s Valgrand who won the the Sky Bet Novice Hurdle by 17 lengths.
Even Skelton had to do a double take. “I thought he could win but not like that,” he said. “I’d like to see him win like that again before we start dreaming. Until then we’ll keep our feet on the ground.”
