Mullins favouring direct route to Cheltenham for Its On The Line

Emmet Mullins is likely set to bypass this weekend’s rescheduled fixture at Oldtown with Its On The Line, as the nine-year-old is now likely to head straight to the Cheltenham Festival in his quest to end a run of consecutive second-placed finishes in the St. James’s Place Festival Hunter Chase.

Owned by JP McManus, the Presenting gelding has had to settle for runners-up honours in each of the last three renewals of that blue-ribboned prize within the hunter chase sphere, as he only missed out by a neck in the latest renewal.

The two-time Punchestown Champion Hunter Chase victor, who also has the 2024 Aintree Foxhunters prize on his CV, secured his twelfth career success at Down Royal on St. Stephen’s day, before he was turned over at odds of 1/5 in a three-runner open at Cragmore last month.

Its On The Line was among 13 entries for the open at Oldtown, however with that course left waterlogged last weekend, his trainer Emmet Mullins has indicated that he is likely to bypass the fixtures rescheduled date this weekend.

“He is training himself here, he does what he likes,” Mullins reported on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast. 

“I was actually planning on running him on Saturday in Oldtown, but it was called off, it’s rescheduled for next weekend but I don’t think I’ll go.

“We will have to get him away one or two days, just to sweeten him up. He is a horse that you can’t really put the gun to his head too much at home, just get him away on the truck, and that will keep him fit enough, I think.”

Its On The Line is currently the second favourite for the amateurs' gold cup, as he will bid to avenge his narrow defeat at the hands of Sam Curling’s stable star Wonderwall.