McCain chips in with tasty treble

DONALD McCAIN was at least one trainer delighted that the Southwell groundstaff had made the effort to keep the racing show on the road when coming away from the Nottinghamshire track with a treble.

McCain, below, scored with Swashbuckle (5-2), Fin And Game (1-6) and Good Tradition (6-5) who was the most impressive winner on the all-two-mile bumpers card.

A host of non-runners, notably the three scheduled contestants from Kim Bailey’s snowgripped Cotswolds yard, left the meeting uncompetitive – but that did not worry McCain.

“Swashbuckle wasn’t doing a lot in front,” he said. “He has worn sheepskins in the past and was just hanging fire a bit. It’s difficult to go a good gallop in a race like this. He was a through stayer on the Flat so we just tried to make it a test.

“He was in at Newbury this weekend. We’ll just look for a handicap, there’s no great plan.”

Good Tradition had failed to win in seven starts for the Cheshirebased trainer since switching from Dermot Weld’s yard, yet he swept away from Newstart by eight lengths. McCain made good use of the safe conditions beforehand too working three of his Cheltenham Festival candidates – Testify (Close Brother Novices’ Chase), Katachenko (Grand Annual) and Lofgren (National Hunt Chase).

“We’ve been cantering away at home but I can’t get any work into them as we’re frozen,” McCain told At The Races. “If you want to go to the Festivals, you have to do that little bit extra with them”