Solwhit has setback in race to be fit for Cheltenham Festival

• Champion Hurdle fancy less than 50-50 to run next week • Trainer Charles Byrnes reports horse is on antibiotics Solwhit, the Irish Champion Hurdle winner, is “less than 50-50″ to run in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham next week after developing a cough, Charles Byrnes, his trainer, said. Solwhit’s participation had been in doubt after a poor scope yesterday, and is on a course of antiobiotics, but if anything, his condition seems to have deteriorated over the last 24 hours. “Solwhit coughed four or five times today,” Byrnes told racingpost.com. ” I more or less expected that to be the case, and that he would get worse before he gets better.

Excerpt from