Exclusive: Olly Murphy Eyes Big Weekend with Strong Leader and Go Dante as Hennessey Festival Looms

He was last seen winning the Grade 1 Liverpool Hurdle at Aintree last April and Murphy is looking forward to running him on Hennessey weekend.

“Strong Leader will go to Newbury the day before the Hennessey for the Long-Distance Hurdle. He’s in good form and had a gallop this week at their gallops morning, so he’ll do a bit of work next week and all systems go for then,” Murphy told SportsBoom.com.

The team hold a strong card for Cheltenham this weekend with Go Dante running in the Greatwood Hurdle, the feature race on Sunday.

The trainer believes his chances would be boosted by rain, stating: “He worked this morning, and I couldn’t be happier with him, I just wish the ground was softer, I would really fancy him if we had a bit of rain, but that can’t be helped, and he is a runner so we will go and take our chance.”

Novice Chasers Butch and Thunder Rock Set for Promising Season 

After a successful campaign last season, winning three times from four, Butch is a novice chaser to follow this season, and he may head to Aintree in December.

Murphy said: “He had a bad scope which is why we never went to Carlisle. The dry weather is playing havoc with where we are going to get him started. He may head to Aintree on the ninth of December for a two and a half mile beginners chase.”

Thunder Rock won a premium listed chase at Carlisle last season but will be reverting to hurdles for the beginning of this campaign, with Ascot his next destination.

Murphy confirmed: “He’ll head to Ascot for the Coral Hurdle in two weeks’ time. He’s in good form and was ready to go at Wetherby but the ground was too quick. I am looking forward to coming back over hurdles with him, his work has been good.”

Junker D’Allier emerged as an exciting novice hurdler after a facile victory at Bangor-On-Dee, resulting in the Formsby Novice Hurdle -formerly the Tolworth- being a possible future destination.

A beaming Murphy said: “He is a lovely horse. He loves his jumping and is a horse who will stay at two miles for now. We are going to have to step him up in class now, we’ll have a look at Cheltenham in December or maybe something like the Tolworth. We haven’t actually got many prep races before you run a Grade 1 over here, I think Haydock in a couple of weeks will come too quick for him. But we’ll step him up in grade in the next six weeks, and he is a horse we really like.”