Illness rules out Murphy runners
Ferdy Murphy is to suspend operations at his Middleham stable for the next fortnight because of an illness which has affected his recent runners, including Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup hope Truckers Tavern.
Murphy revealed today that after running Luzcadou at Ayr tomorrow, he will not be making any more entries for at least two weeks to give his team, who have been inoculated to combat the problem, plenty of time to recover.
Murphy is hopeful horses like Truckers Tavern will be back in time for the Festival.
He said: “We are taking a pull for a couple of weeks because something has been affecting the horses in their races.
“The problem is evident at the business end of the races when they’re not finding anything. The vets have been working on it and think they’ve identified the problem, which has been rife in Ireland and is similar to that which has been evident with Noel Meade.
“The mechanics of it all means we can’t race any horses for at least a week, but I’m hoping that by the middle of February we’ll be out of the woods.”
Murphy was not initially too disappointed with the performance of last year’s Gold Cup runner-up Truckers Tavern in the Pillar Property Chase at Cheltenham last weekend after jockey Tony Dobbin expressed enthusiasm.
Murphy added: “Tony was quite bullish afterwards, but we’ve subsequently found a problem on Truckers Tavern which I hope will soon be sorted out.”
