Super Sub Thornton Gets Somersby Ride

Henrietta Knight has been in the news this week with her announcement that she was considering switching her stable star Somersby from his long intended target the Queen Mother Champion Chase to the Ryanair Chase instead.

The Gold Cup winning trainer has now shelved that switch and has reverted back to her original plan to run in the Championship two-mile event and relieved punters who had backed the horse in the ante-post lists will be breathing a sigh of relief.

However Knight did have another surprise up her sleeve, she has now decided that her stable jockey, Hadden Frost does not have enough experience of big races to take the ride at Cheltenham and instead Robert Thornton will be in the plate, a move that is bound to ruffle some feathers and anyone who has placed Cheltenham 2011 bets on the horse will have been taken aback by the decision.

Thornton did ride the seven-year-old twice last season, those rides included the Arkle chase at last years Festival where the pair finished as runner-up to Sizing Europe and those looking at the Cheltenham betting offers shouldn’t necessarily see the move as a bad one.

The move is a shade harsh on Frost, who has forged a good relationship with the gelding this year, but Robert Thornton is a class jockey who has a great record at Cheltenham and he will not harm the chances of Somersby.

Tags: cheltenham betting, cheltenham festival 2011, henrietta knight trainer, robert thornton jockey, somersby horseShare