Friday, March 19, 2010

Midlands Grand National anyone?

After a bookies' week at Cheltenham (review to follow in a separate post), there's the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter tomorrow for those with any cash left. Somebody who should have plenty of fifties in his back pocket is Nigel Twiston-Davies after the yard finished the last day of this year's Festival with a 748/1 treble courtesy of Imperial Commander in the Gold Cup (7/1), Baby Run, ridden by son Sam Twiston-Davies, in the Foxhunter Chase (9/2jf) and Pigeon Island in the finale (16/1). With the stable in such fine form, I had this idea to back one of theirs in the Uttoxeter feature but guess what - they don't have one entered.

Eighteen have been declared; the going is currently described as good, good-to-soft in places, but the way the rain is falling in Coventry at the moment I'm guessing it'll ride soft on the day. In the last ten years the race has been run eight times with the winner never carrying more than ten stones nine and on each occasion being aged between seven and nine. Of the eighteen, the four I've concentrated on are the Philip Hobbs pair Ballydub and Mark The Book, Sherwoods Folly and Irish raider Inoma James. Hobbs, in fine form at the Festival, fields three, the other one being Kornati Kid who is highly regarded but didn't appear to take the preliminaries at all well in the Welsh National the last time - his chance had gone before the start. The trainer picks out Ballydub in first time blinkers as his pick of the three. Sherwoods Folly has had a decent break coming to this and makes some appeal off a light weight while the chance of Inoma James is more obvious - he won the Grand National Trial at Punchestown at the end of January on heavy ground. Irish-trained runners have a good record in this race, having won three times since 2002 - I'll take an each-way interest in Inoma James at around 9/1.

Of those near the head of the handicap Le Beau Bai looks on the small side for a big weight while Synchronised was declared for the four mile National Hunt Chase at the Festival on Wednesday but was then withdrawn, presumably on account of the ground; underfoot conditions will be more to his liking here.

3 comments:

Sandracer said...

Uttoxeter?

Lingfield Winter Derby tomorrow old boy.

Fiery Lad, all the way.

Well, off the last bend.

GeeDee said...

Sandracer,

You're right - I would have been better off concentrating on the Winter Derby...

GeeDee said...

The Midlands Grand National turned into a war of attrition with only three finishing in the testing conditions. McCoy rode a fine race on Synchronised (15/2) who received a reminder at the back of the field after just one furlong; the champion jockey worked his mount into the race steadily and his horse was the one going best of all at the business end of the race, holding Nick Williams' L'Aventure (12/1) three quarters of a length on the line - that was some performance conceding sixteen pounds to the runner-up. The only other finisher, Giles Cross, was a distance back in third. The money certainly came for the selection Inoma James (sent off the 13/2 favourite) but the writing was on the wall very early on as he hit the third hard, lost his racing pitch after just one circuit with some very sketchy leaps and was pulled up tailed off after the eighteenth. All in all, a very disappointing effort...