Punters favourite, Peddlers Cross, will be entered into either the Tote Contenders Hurdle at Sandown or the William Hill Welsh Champion Hurdle at Ffos Las, both held on Saturday 5 February, en-route to a serious challenge for top honours at the Cheltenham Festival.
 
The original intention had been to race the unbeaten Donald McCain-trained stable star at Haydock last Saturday in the Champion Hurdle trial but the abandonment of that meeting has meant the schedule has been re-arranged.
 
Of most interest to supporters of the smart six-year-old would be the potential for renewed rivalry with Nicky Henderson’s Binocular. The pair met in the Fighting Fifth at Newbury with Peddler’s Cross taking victory in a hard fought race and were next expect to battle it out at Cheltenham. However, with both horses due to race a week on Saturday there is a chance that punters will get a sneak peak of March action.
 
For his part, horse betting pundits not that McCain seems most concerned by the going rather than the prospect of facing Binocular once again and that bullish attitude will certainly lead to plenty of support in the betting ring, should the two horses line up against each other before Cheltenham.
 
As McCain was quoted as saying “If a horse is unbeaten you don’t know how good he is and that is where we are with Peddlers”.
 
That shows a great attitude for the trainer a potential superstar and we applaud the sentiments. We also expect to be applauding the performance as the horse is known to be working very well at home and tends to transport that form to the track.