King Under No Illusions As Edwardstone Faces Old Foe Jonbon

Alan King is thrilled to continue Edwardstone's journey when he locks horns with old opponent Jonbon as soon as again on Saturday as both featured among the 6 declarations for the Betfair Ascot Chase.


The duo have actually routinely dealt with off over 2 miles through their careers, today do battle over a new range, with Edwardstone getting here off the back of a heartfelt success in the Silviniaco Conti Chase at Kempton last month.


King stated: "The old kid appears in excellent kind. I would have chosen somewhat much better ground, but it is the way it is and we'll see how he gets on.


"It was excellent to see him win at Kempton last time and his interest and work at home is nearly as great as it has actually always been, it was lovely to see him get his head in front again. It gave myself and the whole team a substantial amount of pleasure.


"There is a lot of prize-money up for grabs and we'll see if we can choose up a piece. We're under no impressions about taking on the 2 huge weapons so we'll see how we get on."


Jonbon has won 2 Melling Chases over an intermediate journey and having actually needed every backyard of the minimum distance when notching back-to-back Clarence House Chase triumphes at this track last time out, is reunited with Nico de Boinville at a location where he has a remarkable record.


Edwardstone rolled back the years at Kempton (Steven Paston/PA)


Edwardstone are Jonbon 12 and 10 respectively and they are taken part the line-up by another senior statesman, with Paul Nicholls' 11-year-old Pic to win the race for a record third time having taken home initially reward for the last 2 seasons.


Dan Skelton runs Heltenham, with stablemates Etalon and Riskintheground missing out on out, with Jennie Candlish's Classic Maestro and Blow Your Wad on launching for Gary and Josh Moore completing the line-up.