Skylight Hustle team keeping close eye on Leopardstown

The Robcour team will be eager to see how the form of Skylight Hustle’s Leopardstown win at Christmas stands up as they head straight to the Cheltenham Festival with the exciting hurdling prospect.

Gordon Elliott’s six-year-old was the beneficiary of Talk The Talk coming down after the last when scooping top honours at the Foxrock track, but with three hurdling appearances to his name, connections are confident he has the necessary experience to make his mark at Prestbury Park in March.

“The plan is he’ll go straight to Cheltenham and he’s in the Supreme and also the Turners,” said Robbie Power, racing manager for the owners who have previously won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle with Slade Power and the longer novice race with Bob Olinger.

“It will be interesting to see how the form stacks up (with Talk The Talk) over the weekend, but I guess there will be totally different ground.

“We’re all very happy with him and he’s got his experience banked. He got beat in a maiden first time out, so he got to have another go in a maiden before stepping up in grade at Christmas.

“The form of the maiden he was beaten in (by Paul Nolan’s Thedeviluno) has worked out really well and he was good and professional when winning the Grade One at Leopardstown. He’s two entries at the Cheltenham Festival so we’ll keep all our options open.”

Another whose fate could be determined by the outcome of the action this weekend is the owners’ exciting juvenile Highland Crystal, who will be given the chance to enhance her reputation in the coming weeks after getting loose before the start and being withdrawn at Doncaster last Saturday.

“She’s a totally different sort to (stablemate) Mange Tout, who might be a bit more streetwise while Highland Crystal is still a baby,” explained Power.

“After what happened to her after travelling to Doncaster last week, it wasn’t ideal to run back so quick this weekend, it was just unfortunate what happened.

“We’ll find another race for her in February and we’ll see how she gets on before deciding on Cheltenham. There’s plenty of options for her and she’s unbeaten and done nothing wrong yet.”