The signs were there in the ante-post market on Wednesday that Douvan might not travel across from Ireland for Saturday’s Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown, and the drift in his price – from odds-on to odds-against – has proved to be prophetic.
Both Douvan and Un De Sceaux, last year’s winner and his stable companion at the Willie Mullins yard, were missing from the list when the final declarations for the race were made this morning. Initially, there were just four runners declared for the Tingle Creek, a race with a prize fund of £150,000: Ar Mad, Fox Norton, Politologue and Sir Valentino. As a result, it was reopened from 10am until 10.30am and in the absence of Mullins’s entries, it swiftly attracted another three contenders: Charbel, Ordinary World and San Benedeto.
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