- Monday, 13 April 2015 13:23
- Written by David Pipe
Soll leaving Aintree admiring Oliver Sherwood's lorry!
As always Aintree provides a great carnival type atmosphere for their three day Grand National meeting and it remains a fitting late season celebration of British racing. While every trainer prepares their charges with Cheltenham as their primary objective, to score at Aintree is a memorable achievement and to land a Grand National is what dreams are made of and with that in mind I would like to pass on my sincerest congratulations to Oliver Sherwood, Leighton Aspell and the connections of Grand National winner Many Clouds.
The rub of the green didn’t seem to go our way during the first couple of days of the Aintree fixture, although there were still a few praiseworthy performances notably from the likes of Stars Over The Sea who finished five lengths fourth in the Grade One Juvenile Hurdle and Ballynagour who put up a career best effort when beaten only a head by Silviniaco Conti in the Betfed Bowl. On Saturday I was also delighted with the performances of Un Temps Pour Tout, Soll and Baltimore Rock.
Stars Over The Sea is still relatively unexposed over timber and showed himself a high class hurdler here with the potential to improve further, especially when he brushes up his jumping. He could go to Punchestown at the end of the month.
What a run from Ballynagour in the Grade One Betfred Bowl on Thursday! If you had asked me that morning I would have happily settled for second place, although when you get so close there are certainly feelings of ‘if only’ afterwards! Nonetheless to finish such a close second to a resurgent Silviniaco Conti was a massive personal best and I am immensely proud of him. He has had some very well documented problems down the years and we have done our very best to manage those, although it does mean that his profile can appear a little in and out and he doesn’t run as often as I would like. Just imagine how good he could be without those problems!
This performance shows that he stays a truly run three miles on a sound surface and opens up a number of options to him next season, including of course the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. In the meantime, we will see how he is in a few days and if he continues to please me, he too could head to Punchestown at the end of the month. He finished an excellent second at the meeting last season following his Festival win and Aintree third, so there is good reason to be optimistic.
The Grand National was the usual fascinating spectacle and our only runner, Soll ran a gallant race to finish ninth. Everything went to plan, he was in a great position throughout and jumped fantastically before unfortunately his old problems of breaking blood vessels resurfaced. He did extremely well to finish ninth and who knows what might have been if this had not happened. The main thing is that is returned fresh and well and if he could talk I am sure he would be telling us how much he enjoyed himself! That is now it for him for the season and he is on his holidays.
Un Temps Pour Tout
Also on Saturday I was delighted with the run of Un Temps Pour Tout who finished third in the Aintree hurdle. The blinkers seemed to certainly seemed to help and I think he put up a career best performance on ground that was much quicker than ideal. He may now head to Punchestown and/or even back to France over hurdles but he is a very nice prospect for fences next season.
Baltimore Rock is another who ran well to finish fourth in the very competitive 2 mile handicap hurdle. He was the first home of the British runners with the first three places being filled by Irish trained horses. He was not beaten far and he is another who may head to Punchestown.
I would also like to take a moment to thank Aintree and all the officials for making the three days run so smoothly and making it the spectacle it is. The starters and officials did a great job throughout but especially in the National itself which is such a high pressure situation. I thought it worked extremely well and the whole meeting was a great advert for our sport.
Sadly the Package didn’t make the final 40 in the National, being the fourth reserve, while Broadway Buffalo also narrowly missed out at number 45. I must take issue with the reserve system currently operating in this country however. As it stands, the Grand National has four reserves until 9am on the Friday before the race and this year, two hours after that deadline Carlito Brigante was found to be lame and declared a non-runner. By this time it was too late for the first reserve Bailey’s Concerto to take his chance and it must be very frustrating for that one’s trainer, Dianne Sayer and connections. The reserve system still operates on the morning of the race in Ireland and I see no reason why a similar system cannot be implemented over here. While it has made no difference to the Pond House runners, personally I see no excuse for a smaller than maximum field of 40 for the Grand National.
Missing out on the National may perversely be a blessing in disguise for Broadway Buffalo who is among the favourites for the Scottish version this Saturday coming. Horses that have finished placed in the four miler at the Cheltenham Festival have an excellent record race in the Ayr race and I hope he will be able to maintain that tradition. He will need some rain between now and then and will only run if the ground has suitable cut for him so we will be monitoring the weather closely over the next few days. Amigo is likely to run in the Scottish National. He has just sneaked into the top 30 after confirmations this morning and after a good run at Newbury last time he is not without a chance.
Meanwhile The Package has been taken out of the Scottish National but the Bet365 at Sandown on the last day of the season is still a very real possibility. Unlike Broadway Buffalo, he prefers a sounder surface.
We could be taking a small team of horses to Ayr and entries for the two day meeting include Street Entertainer, Border Breaker, Alternatif, My Brother Sylvest and Heath Hunter in the Scottish Champion hurdle. What goes up to Scotland is highly dependent on what happens with the weather this week.
There are meetings taking place at the likes of Exeter and Cheltenham this week and while I am sure we will have a few runners, many of our string are winding down now ahead of their summer holidays. So as usual, for all the latest news on running plans from the yard keep up to date with Chester’s Daily Chat or follow us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing.
