Lil Rockerfeller all Heart in Cheltenham Win, Despite Poor Jumping Display

Lil Rockerfeller is arguably one of the public’s favourite horses in training right now. He’s started chasing this season, and won his second race over the bigger obstacles in a row at Cheltenham on Friday. However, despite showing as a comfortable win in the form book, it was far from that and the horse will have to do a lot better if he is to scale the same heights over fences that he did over hurdles.

The race was littered with jumping errors, and for most part it was a surprise that the horse completed the race, never mind that the horse went on to win. There are two things this horse has in abundance that helped him win on the day and that is quality and a big heart. Despite losing a couple of lengths every time he made a mistake at a fence, he still had the quality to keep in touch and not allow the others to get away from him.

Then the second thing he had was bravery, he never gave up and when they turned for home, he powered away like the good horse that he is. Many other animals would have been down beat and low on confidence after the round of jumping he had put in, but instead of feeling sorry for himself he reserved his best two jumps of the race for the final two fences. These saw him home, much to the delight of the punters who took the odds-on prices available on him before the race.

There is no doubt that Lil Rockerfeller has a huge amount of talent, but he will have to jump better if he is to contest some of the bigger races over the large obstacles. You cannot question his talent and heart, but there is a big question mark over his jumping, and this is something that really needs to improve if he is to move into graded company.