Warrior targets National battle
THREE-TIME Grand National- winning owner Trevor Hemmings has bought Paul Nicholls - trained Warriors Tale to run in Aintree’s £1million steeplechase in April.
The nine- year- old was just touched off by Wakanda in the Great Yorkshire Chase last month.
Hemmings, who has won the National with Hedgehunter (2005), Ballabriggs (2011) and Many Clouds (2015), also has Vicente as an Aintree entry.
The horse was a first-fence faller last year with Nicholls, but the trainer indicated yesterday that he could be saved for a crack at winning a third successive Scottish National at Ayr after a Cheltenham Festival prep run.
Nicholls said: ‘Trevor bought Warriors Tale as a National horse. He ran very well in the Great Yorkshire Chase. He’s a very solid jumper and a lively outsider.’
Nicholls’s top jockey Sam Twiston-Davies is set to ride Blaklion, his father Nigel’s National antepost favourite. That will leave Warriors Tale to be partnered at Aintree by Sean Bowen and may offer a chance to Nicholls-based conditional jockey Bryony Frost to ride her boss’s As De Mee, jointly owned by Dame Judi Dench and Andy Stewart.
Frost partners one of Nicholls’s top Cheltenham prospects in RSA Chase runner Black Corton. The duo, who have won seven races together this season, are part of a Nicholls team of 15-20 runners at the Festival which starts a week on Tuesday.
The 10-time champion trainer’s contenders include Frodon (Ryanair Chase), Modus (JLT Novices’ Chase), Old Guard (Stayers’ Hurdle), Act of Valour and Malaya (Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle) and Dolos, who he is ‘very keen on’ in the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Handicap Chase.
Nicholls is likely to have four runners in the Foxhunter Chase — Wonderful Charm, Unioniste, Virak and 2017 winner Pacha Du Polder. His Tingle Creek Chase winner Politologue will lock horns again with Altior, who brushed him aside in last month’s Game Spirit Chase at Newbury.
Nicholls said: ‘We are only going to run horses we think have realistic chances. Politologue was beaten by a very smart horse.
‘The difference is in the Champion Chase. He won’t have to make his own running. Things can change on a different track. Altior looks exceptional but it is a different scenario.’
Trainer Ben Pauling has ruled Willoughby Court out of the Festival because of an infected foot. The winner of the 2017 Neptune Investment Novices’ Hurdle was ante-post favourite for the JLT Novices’ Chase.
Snow flurries hit Cheltenham yesterday and the course is likely to be covered in up to six inches by the weekend. Temperatures are then forecast to rise and clerk of the course Simon Claisse says he is anticipating mild weather for the Festival.