NAME’S IN THE FRAME
IF you are having a bet on Aintree’s opener today, you only need to remember one name — CYRNAME.
From a punting point of view the Manifesto Chase is a race made in heaven.
There are six starters but Calino D’airy has a mountain to climb on official ratings, while Finian’s Oscar’s decided that running quickly round a racecourse wasn’t his favourite occupation sometime ago.
He holds Modus on Cheltenham form, however, while Rene’s Girl is three out of four over fences, but hasn’t faced anything near the ability of what she faces this afternoon.
Another of today’s rivals, Nicky Henderson’s Brain Power, was sensibly ridden to obtain the best possible placing behind Footpad in the Arkle.
Prior to that he had a breathing operation, yet is tried in a tongue-tie here, which indicates the op probably didn’t have the desired effect.
The fact his yard has pulled out several horses this week has to be a worry too.
Although best known for his Kempton exploits, Cyrname — trained by Paul Nicholls (above) — posted a fine effort going left-handed when second to Bigmartre at Newbury, with subsequent winner Crievehill well beaten. He was far better at Sandown when making JLT runner-up Terrefort pull out all the stops and subsequently looked tailormade for this contest when scorching around Kempton in February.
He’s a confident selection, while
ran well at Cheltenham and comes from Colin Tizzard’s (above, left) yard whose horses generally do far better at Aintree than in Gloucestershire.
Thistlecrack burst on to the big stage with a 25-1 win here in 2015 and it would be unwise to rule out a repeat performance from the trainer today.
TODAY’S SELECTIONS
Aintree
1.45 Cyrname
2.20 Padleyourowncanoe