Hewick set to skip Aintree with Punchestown and Sandown possible targets after heroic Gold Cup effort

Shark Hanlon has ruled out a tilt at the Grand National for Hewick, deciding it would be wrong to ask his stable star to go to Aintree after his fall in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The eight-year-old has been a general 25-1 chance for the Grand National, in which he was allotted top weight.

While Aintree is off the agenda, there are plenty of options for Hanlon's versatile performer and a potential rematch with Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs could be on the cards at Punchestown. The trainer also raised the possibility of attempting to win back-to-back bet365 Gold Cups at Sandown.

He said: "I’m going to train him as a Gold Cup horse for next year, so he'll only get two or three more runs this season. He'll probably go to Punchestown for the Gold Cup there. The bet365 is an option as well. He would have a big weight in that but weight doesn’t seem to bother him."

Hewick was running a massive race at Cheltenham before falling at the second-last, having been up with the strong pace throughout. 

Hanlon said: "He's 100 per cent but I just think it would be wrong on him to go for the National on his next start after a fall. He’s only a young horse and could go for it in the future."

Having travelled smoothly throughout the Gold Cup, Jordan Gainford had begun to ask Hewick for his effort on the inside when he came down. Galopin Des Champs ran out a deeply impressive winner but Hanlon feels his horse could have finished second had he stayed on his feet.

The trainer said: "He meets a flat spot in every race and Jordan felt he was just hitting it when he came down. In his opinion he would have come to the last upsides Galopin Des Champs and Bravemansgame. It wasn’t a tired fall. He just pitched and knuckled on landing.

"Usually when he goes through that flat spot he takes off again and, while he might not have beaten the winner, we think he might have finished second."

The American Grand National winner had not been certain to line up in the Gold Cup due to his preference for good ground and Hanlon added: "An hour before the race we were still half-thinking of not running him. It was tacky ground and he didn’t like it.

"If we had good ground at Punchestown, I’d be happy to take on any of the Gold Cup horses after the other day. He's an awful lot better on good ground than the ground on Friday."

Read these next:

Epic Gold Cup lives up to expectations as Galopin Des Champs gallops to glory under brilliant Paul Townend 

'Huge, huge performance' - Paul Townend reflects on Galopin Des Champs' Cheltenham Gold Cup heroics 

Harry Cobden: I thought I was going to win the Gold Cup for five seconds 

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