100k race will be real cracker
Top trainers to lap up bumper prizes
A brand new £ 100,000 race on Coral Scottish Grand National Saturday will make Scotland’s richest jumps fixture even more valuable.
The three mile open novices’ handicap chase will proudly sit alongside the £ 215,000 Scottish National and the £ 105,000 QTS Scottish Champion Hurdle, giving the eight race card a trio of six figure plus contests.
There will now be a staggering £ 550,000 on offer on the Saturday of the Festival and you can rest assured Messrs Nicholls, Henderson, Mullins, King, O’Neill and Tizzard will already be plotting an Ayr raid for next April.
The chase will be a championship final for novice chasers who, to qualify, must have finished in the first eight in at least one weight for age novices’ or beginners chase during the 2017- 2018 season and will be supported by the BHA’s Development Fund as part of the Fund’s 2018 expenditure.
One of the first people to congratulate Ayr on the latest addition to the top races at the track was Master of Greystoke Nicky Richards who told me: “It’s excellent news for racing in general and particularly in the north that a race of this calibre is being added to an already quality card. Hopefully I’ll have a horse good enough to run in it.
“It’s another feather in Ayr’s cap to stage a third race worth £ 100,000 or more on the same day.”
I personally am already looking forward to what should be a peach of a Festival and I’m sure there will be a huge field of novice chasers contesting this which incidentally will be the second richest chase of its type over three miles behind only the RSA at Cheltenham.
We were racing at Ayr yesterday ( Wednesday) and I’ll bring you all the latest news from that meeting in next week’s column.
The next date for your diary is Monday, November 27 when we stage the third and final meeting of the month at the track, the aptly named November Finale Raceday.
There are six races with the feature contest a Class 3 two mile five furlong handicap hurdle which is due off at 1.20pm.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from our jumps meetings so far this season it’s that Lucinda Russell has her string in good heart and whatever she runs in this race has to be respected.
Other trainers who will have their horses primed for this fixture are Nick Alexander, James Ewart and Mike Smith.
There are two chases during the afternoon – a three mile handicap which will be a stamina sapping race at this time of year – and a two mile five furlong novices’ chase.
The afternoon ends with an amateur riders’ handicap hurdle over two miles four furlongs scheduled for 4pm.
To book tickets for this or any meeting at Ayr call 01292 264179 or go online at www. ayr- racecourse. co. uk
There’s a well- known adage – never work with children or animals but last Friday I was working with the latter and it went a treat.
The animal in question was the stunning looking racehorse Peter’s Grey, trained by Mike Smith at his yard outside Galston and Mike kindly ‘ lent’ me his steed for a photo shoot to promote Remembrance Sunday.
To say Peter’s Grey was a star is an understatement. He posed looking over a fence covered in giant poppies and made photographer Alister Firth’s life a lot easier than it could have.
Suffice to say, Peter’s Grey will be my go- to horse for photo shoots from now on.