Lavelle content to pull stumps with Ma Shantou for the season

Emma Lavelle will have to wait until next season for definitive answers to the questions posed by Ma Shantou’s below-par Stayers’ Hurdle performance, after confirming her star performer will not be seen again this term.

The seven-year-old headed to the Cheltenham Festival looking to follow in the footsteps of the handler’s great Paisley Park on the back of a career best in the Cleeve Hurdle in January, but was unable to make his presence felt, fading before the last and beaten 51 lengths in a race won by veteran Home By The Lee.

The Marlborough handler has been left scratching her head in the aftermath and mulling over the possible reasons for the poor outing.

Lavelle said: “I think we can put a line through it but I’m just not sure and we probably won’t know until next season now.

“He seemed in great order going into the race, but he has either run brilliantly or thrown in a not so good run, so maybe it was the case it was time for the not so good run?

“He’s come out of the race fresh as paint and I’m really happy with him, he seems fine afterwards. But there are so many questions we don’t have an answer for I guess.

“The Cheltenham Festival is so tough to win at, not just run well at, and Impose Toi didn’t run his race either so does it mean they had a harder race than we maybe thought in the Cleeve? Does it mean we’re not good enough?

“You can tie yourself in knots trying to figure out what happened but what I do know is we have a horse to go back to war with next season.”

Lavelle feels no temptation to give Ma Shantou the opportunity to make amends at Aintree next month, content to end the season with three Cheltenham victories to his name from five starts.

Instead attentions have already turned to next season, with plans afoot to begin the new campaign in Paisley Park’s familiar starting point of Newbury’s Long Distance Hurdle – but with the option of going novice chasing also left open.

Lavelle added: “I don’t really see him as an Aintree horse and when he came back from Cheltenham I thought he looked light enough. If we’re going to keep progressing I don’t think we need to go to the bottom of the well this season.

“We’ll run him next in the Long Distance Hurdle at Newbury and if that goes well we’ll stay over hurdles and if not we may have a look at novice chasing.

“My plan in the next week or so is to school him over fences and we’ll have that in the bag then so we can plot a route after we come back next season.

“All options are open to us and we’ll draw a line through the Stayers’ and remember we’re happy to have won three races at Cheltenham in the same season which is a mighty fine effort in its own right.”