'It's very, very depressing' - festival blow to Twiston-Davies team as Broadway Boy is ruled out of Brown Advisory

Broadway Boy, who had been a 10-1 shot for Wednesday's Brown Advisory Novices' Chase, has been ruled out of the Cheltenham Festival.

The Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained six-year-old had been given the go-ahead to take on Fact To File in the Grade 1 contest last week following a piece of work that was described as "exceptional".

Twiston-Davies's son and assistant, Willy, said: "It's very, very depressing, especially for it to happen so close to the race. He's just not 100 per cent to run on Wednesday and you cannot be taking chances going into such a contest. 

"We haven't thought much about where we go next, but we'll get him right first and then we could be having Aintree on the radar with him."

Before his setback connections had been weighing up Tuesday's National Hunt Chase, but they ultimately believed he was good enough to go for the Grade 1 option.

Owned by David Proos, Broadway Boy has gained plenty of Cheltenham experience, winning three of his four starts there since April.

He looked set to relish the return to the track after finishing a distant third in the Grade 2 Hampton Novices' Chase at Warwick last time.

His absence leaves Fact To File as the 10-11 favourite for the Brown Advisory ahead of Stay Away Fay (7-2) and Monty's Star (5-1) after six runners were declared on Monday.

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