All eyes on Jonbon, as Henderson big guns start to appear

Nicky Henderson will be an anxious onlooker on plenty of huge days this season and the first of them comes at Warwick, as Jonbon makes his highly-anticipated fencing bow.

The JP McManus-owned full-brother to Douvan cost a record-breaking £570,000 at the sales and did virtually everything right in his novice hurdling campaign, being beaten only by stablemate Constitution Hill in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

Now he switches to the larger obstacles, something Henderson described as a “natural progression”.

“Everything has gone great to be honest with you, we’re starting to get into the A team now where things get a bit jittery,” said the Seven Barrows trainer.

“He’s very good, Paddy who rides him every day has done a brilliant job with him and is very happy with him.

“He does a lot of things on his own, he doesn’t come in the covered ride because he doesn’t like it and I think it’s a bit claustrophobic, he just goes for a walk and a trot outside and then joins in. He’ll always jig-jog and sweat a bit and he will sweat a bit before and after the race, I would suspect.

“He has schooled very well, and we have always been looking forward to it – it was just a natural progression to go over fences.”

Just two take Jonbon on – but both Paul Nicholls’ Monmiral and the Dan Skelton-trained West Cork pose an obvious threat.

Henderson added: “It’s going to be a funny race – there’s only three horses, but they are high-class horses so it could be a game of cat and mouse which we don’t really want. We’d quite like a true run race, but we’ll see how it pans out.

“I look forward to it with a certain amount of trepidation, as it’s a very important day, he’s a horse that’s been high-profile for a number of different reasons.”

Like Jonbon a Grade One winner over timber, Monmiral was due to make his chasing debut at Cheltenham last weekend but was taken out due to the ground.

Nicholls said: “He’s fine. We took him out of Saturday’s race because we thought the ground was a bit too quick for him.

“He had a gravelled foot last week and it was a bit of a race to get him ready, and Clifford (Baker) said he wasn’t entirely happy.

“We had a look and both agreed that we should not risk him on the ground after that, but he is fine and in good order and he’s ready to go.”