Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
STICK WITH FORTUNE HUNTER
WINNER MACHINE
THE Phil Middleton-trained GOLAN FORTUNE has been slugging it out with the country’s top staying novice chasers, but it is a switch back to hurdles which can see him add to his Ludlow chase win in December.
On his last outing over timber, at Cheltenham in December, he went toe to toe with On The Blind Side who has done nothing but boost the form since. And he already boasts a course and distance success ahead of Kempton’s Close Brothers Handicap Hurdle (1.15).
There is a terrific wide-open contest for the Close Brothers Handicap Chase (3.35) in which
AL DANCER tries three miles for the first time.
This battle-hardened scrapper has competed honourably for valuable prizes over four campaigns — including this season’s Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham where he was a staying-on third behind Coole Cody — and I am confident he will get the trip on this flat track.
THE DUTCHMAN, a former Peter Marsh Chase winner when with Colin Tizzard, has enjoyed a new lease of life for trainer Tristan
Davidson after almost three years off.
Sean Quinlan won a big staying handicap chase recently on Takingrisks and could be the man to steer this generally slick jumper to success in the Vertem Eider Chase (3.15) at Newcastle.
TODAY’S SELECTIONS Golan Fortune
1.15 Kempton
The Dutchman
3.15 Newcastle
Al Dancer
3.35 Kempton
SUITED BY CONDITIONS Southfield Stone
CONDITIONS have dried up just in time for Southfield Stone in the Close Brothers Handicap Chase at Kempton today.
Trained by Paul Nicholls, the eight-year-old certainly has more to offer over fences than we have had the chance to see to date.
He simply must have good ground to be seen at his best, as he showed when beating the talented Angels Breath in the Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle at this meeting two years ago.
Flat tracks definitely suit him best too, which was why, despite winning that Grade Two, Nicholls did not even send him to Cheltenham that year, instead waiting for Aintree where soft ground scuppered him.
As he did not win his first novice chase until February last season having had the misfortune of bumping into some smart recruits, he was still eligible for a novice in October, when he beat the subsequent Paddy Power Gold Cup winner Coole Cody.
He has subsequently been put in his place by Protektorat, although there was no disgrace in that considering he was giving him weight, and then bogged down in the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup won by Chatham Street Lad.
That run though, along with his effort in Grade One company at Aintree, are the only times he has been out of the frame in 17 starts and his consistency must be admired.
It is not hard to make a case for him as he is trained by a master, has his ground, loves the track and arrives having won a jumpers’ bumper most recently, beating the smart Didtheyleaveuoutto.