We’re excited to be sending a small but select team to Aintree for the Grand National meeting this week. While we don’t have a runner in the big one, we’ve got a nice spread across the three days and hopefully we can return down south with a winner!
Thursday
We’re delighted with Gidleigh Park and very much looking forward to stepping him into Grade One company for the two-and-a-half-mile novice chase (13:45) which opens the meeting. His preparation has gone really well for the race, with his schooling and work going nicely, so it’s all systems go. We had the choice of running him in the two-mile race on the Saturday too, but we ultimately decided to go up in trip and run him on the nicer ground, which we expect to be in the first on Thursday.
He obviously had a setback in February which meant we had to skip Cheltenham, but everything since then has gone to plan and there’s no hint of a reoccurrence of what made us miss the Festival. The form of his two-mile Windsor win couldn’t have worked out better with Caldwell Potter winning the way he did at Cheltenham, when stepped up in trip, and we’d be hopeful our guy can show similar improvement over this two-and-a-half miles.
To all intents and purposes, this is only Gidleigh Park’s second start over fences after having pulled up early on his first go at Kempton, so we have to be respectful of the talented opposition. You’ve got Jango Baie, the Arkle winner, as well as Impaire Et Passe and Croke Park who are Grade One quality too. But we’re really happy with our guy and hopefully he can get us and the meeting off to a flyer.
While it might seem we’re trying to match Willie Mullins by winning a Grade One juvenile hurdle (14:20) on hurdles bow with Coconut Grove, that might be a very tall order and certainly isn’t by design! It’s just a case of circumstance that’s led us to this point, as he was due to debut in February but missed that due to a small bit of lameness. He was then due to run at Newbury the other day, but unfortunately the ground went the wrong way. Aintree, therefore, seemed the right way to go, and while we’re not expecting him to go there and win, we hope he can give a good account of himself. We hope that the experience will stand him in good stead, and if he doesn’t win, he’ll hopefully still be a nice novice for next season. If he does win, however, no one is going to complain about that!
Friday
Gin Coco is our only runner on the Friday in the two-and-a-half-mile handicap hurdle (14:20) which has been the plan for a long while. It looks to be a fiercely competitive handicap as you might expect for one run at a spring festival, but as I said, we’ve had this race in mind for a long time and he goes very well fresh, so we think he could outrun his odds. He runs nicely in the spring, too, so over this longer distance, I hope this track will suit him too. There’s no reason why he can’t be competitive.
Saturday
Altobelli is our final runner of the meeting, and he takes his chance in the three-mile Grade One Liverpool Hurdle (15:05). This is the first time he’ll run over this trip, but he’s shown improved form this season, particularly the last day at Ascot, and we think it’s a good opportunity to test his stamina. We felt that while he could’ve gone to Cheltenham and carried a lot of weight in a handicap, we could think a bit differently and aim him for a Grade One at Aintree instead. This division isn’t always the strongest, and while we fully respect the likes of Teahupoo and Home By The Lee in here, our guy is a developing seven-year-old who’s progressing. It’s a race we’re lucky to have won in the past with If The Cap Fits, and we’re excited to see if Altobelli can follow in his footsteps on Grand National Day.
All the best,
Harry