Gidleigh Park connections await test results

The six-year-old was pulled up by Bryan Carver after jumping just five fences, with a subsequent stewards’ report revealing he was found to have an irregular heartbeat.

It's not the first time Gidleigh Park has been diagnosed with a heart issue and Fry's team are now fully focussed on his recovery.

“He seems absolutely fine himself. The vets have been running tests and he’s been having an ECG and we’re just awaiting further results,” the trainer said on Tuesday.

“He did have an episode of atrial fibrillation at the beginning of October last season and reset himself within sort of 24 hours. He obviously went on and had a good novice hurdle campaign, so we’ve been here before with him and monitor him closely.

“You could see early on in the race at Kempton that things weren’t right, he wasn’t travelling and certainly wasn’t jumping with the zest that we’d expect. Bryan was very quick to pull him up when clearly there was something amiss and so it’s proved.

“We’re back to the drawing board and awaiting results from the vets. There’s no timeline on it or anything like that. It’s obviously paramount first and foremost that we give him a chance to recover.

“The best-case scenario is he’ll correct himself, but if he doesn’t, he’ll potentially need treatment. It’s still very early days and we’ll just try and get to the bottom of it and make plans from there.

“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we’ve got to get him right first before we think about anything else or make any plans whatsoever. That’s our focus at the moment, getting to the bottom of it and getting him back to full health before we think about what might happen next.”