O'Neill waits on Albertas Chase run (From Evesham Journal)

O'Neill waits on Albertas Chase run

10:00am Thursday 28th February 2013 in Sport

ALBERTAS Run’s prospects of winning the Cheltenham Festival’s Ryanair Chase for the third time next month remain in the balance.

Temple Guiting trainer Jonjo O’Neill’s 12-year-old, owned by Trevor Hemmings, was put through his paces at Kempton with a full circuit of the track under Tony McCoy with stablemate Kandari.

The gelding has not run since last year’s Aintree National meeting and Kandari appeared to move the better of the two.

O’Neill admitted: “Hopefully, the day out will bring him along but we are running out of time a little bit with him.

“The plan is definitely to go if he is right and, at this stage, Aintree (Grand National) is still the plan after Cheltenham.

“I could just see it bringing him to life.”

Meanwhile, jockey Maurice Linehan is likely to be out of action for at least several months after suffering bad injuries in a fall at Kempton with the O’Neill-trained Mister Hyde.

“He’s broken his sternum and two vertebrae,” said the Jackdaws Castle handler.

“I’m no doctor but, from experience, I’d say he’d be out for at least a couple of months.”