Ruth Jefferson's stable star Waiting Patiently has suffered a training setback after it came back he had undergone a dirty scope which has ruled him out of his planned seasonal reappearance at Exeter on Tuesday.
Future plans are now up in the air for the eight year old after his withdrawal from the Grade Two Haldon Cup tomorrow with the geldings trainer having big aspirations for her horse after being troubled by injury last year.
(Credit At The Races) Ruth Jefferson said: “It’s very frustrating, but these things happen and there’s nothing we can do about it.
“We’d had this race at the back of our minds for a while and with the ground coming up soft, it looked a nice starting point and would have hopefully told us a lot about where we’re heading for the rest of the season with him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.”
Waiting Patiently has been a very unlucky horse since seeing of a host off runners including the amazing Cue Card in the 2018 Ascot Chase having had setback after setback and never being able to recreate that form.
Last season in the King George VI Chase, which was his first run of the season, he was going well before being brought down by Bristol De Mai and unseated his rider Brian Hughes.
He went in search of defending his title at Ascot in February but was a long way behind the winner Cyrname for Paul Nicholls before he finished his season in the Melling Chase at the Grand National meeting finishing third behind eventual winner Min.
Jefferson added: “I haven’t thought about where we’re going to go now, to be honest. We hoped this race would tell us what our next race would be.
“We couldn’t run him after a bad scope as that would have told us nothing and it could have mucked up his season.
“We’ll have to go back to the drawing board, but we need to concentrate on getting him cleaned up and sorted first.”