Sire De Grugy has had special shoes made for his trip to Cheltenham

The most fashionable horse in the ring next week

We're in full on Cheltenham mode at this stage with less than a week to go to the carnival of betting. Day two of the Festival will be dominated by talk of how Sire De Grugy will fare around the track for the Queen Mother Champion Chase after a number of problems over the last few months. Well, if he doesn't defend his crown it won't be down to poor footwear after Gary Moore revealed he'll be sporting some white plastic shoes for next Wednesday's race. The horse suffered with a corn in his hoof at Newbury last month when he unseated his jockey Jamie Moore, and the decision was made afterwards to perform some minor surgery on his foot which means he'll run with plastic shoes on next week. Moore's explanation of the process used to get the special shoes on the horse saw him casually drop the word 'dope' into the conversation a week before Cheltenham. He also thinks that the horse will be the most fashionable in the parade ring in his new brogues:

'He can be quite temperamental so we have to dope him to put shoes on - we had to do it yesterday evening so he is clear under Jockey Club rules - we use eight days but you could sail close to the wind with six days. Normally, when you dope a horse, you have an hour to clip or shoe him but with Sire De Grugy it is only 45 minutes. 'He is just a character. You can shoe him in front without doping him, but not behind. It is quite unusual to see a racehorse with white shoes. The blacksmith is going to travel to Cheltenham with Sire De Grugy just in case. They are a bit more pronounced than a normal shoe. They must be Gucci's as they are quite expensive.'

The horse has already had a winning run in his new shoes at Chepstow and his main competition next week will likely come from 2013 winner Sprinter Sacre, as well as Champagne Fever. H/t to SportingLife