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Il Est Francais has been moved to champion trainer Dan Skelton in a bid to reinvigorate one of the fading stars of jump racing.
Richard Kelvin Hughes, who owns the eight-year-old with his wife Lizzie, said the decision to switch from Tom George was an amicable one made in agreement with all parties as Il Est Francais was struggling to recapture the sparkling form that made him one of the most exciting novice chasers in Europe.
He said: “Tom has done a wonderful job with the horse, but we all jointly felt that it was the time for someone else to have a go with him.”
VF x
I think he has his work cut out with this one. Fragile and a bleeder. It will be some training performance to win anything good with him.
It is getting on for three years since his sensational win at Kempton. Even if Skelton does manage to plot him up to win a handicap, it will still be an anticlimax after his novice season.
Agree CAS he gone same way as another french horse did before he was retired Easyslands
VF x
Skelton maybe able to get a bit of spark back into him but agree you would have to worry about his fragile nature
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I suppose in a way Skelton can’t really lose. If he transforms the horse, he will be hailed by some people as a genius. But if the horse does nothing, no one is going to blame him because the rot had already set in.
For me the horse is a shadow of his former self and I don’t think a change of scenery is going to change that – in all his recent races, as soon as he is challenged and pressure is applied, he checks out.
Folds when challenged? They should rename him “Farage”, to go with the change of stable.
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