OUT IN STICKS
Jeremy Grayson finds some horses to follow at the smaller tracks
MUSSELBURGH, 3 March (Good, good to soft in places)
1m7f124yds (+21yds) 0-115 Handicap Hurdle (class 4)
Beaten under 4l in third, the return to form of FISHER GREEN around a C&D where his record reads a still-tidy 3-5 has in one sense come too late, with the jumps season at Musselburgh all but done for another season now. It’s worth noting, however, that two of his three best ever form efforts win or lose have been recorded during the month of May (in recent years one of trainer Maurice Barnes’s strongest months of the season) and at venues still very much active into the spring and summer, namely Perth and Hexham. With no raise having followed this effort, this eight-year-old son of Rip Van Winkle remains 3lb below his last winning mark and can be fancied to take advantage, so long as good or good to soft ground can continue to be sourced.
3m2f139yds Hunters’ Chase (class 5)
Northern point-to-point and hunter chase aficionados will know that inmates from Freya and Guy Brewer’s yard usually need at least one run back, and to them it won’t have surprised in the slightest that both POINT THE WAY (18-1) and Dark Mahler (a similar price overnight but backed into 7-2) were able to step up markedly on previous efforts this term, each collecting a highly respectable second place behind a Nicholls/Loxton /Cobden hotpot in the two hunter chases on this card. Point The Way remains a gelding with unrealised potential as a staying/marathon chaser, and the near-3m3f ultimately proved an inadequate test around such a sharp track for this nephew of Uncle Junior, five times a winner over 3m6f-4m1f (including two La Touche Cups). The long-distance event at Cheltenham’s hunter chase evening rates an obvious target, but he’d demand a second look in any other exacting test in this sphere in the meantime, such as can be found. Effectiveness on anything from good to heavy can help prevent options becoming too limited.
CARLISLE, 11 March (Soft)
2m1f 0-105 Mares’ Novices’ Handicap Hurdle (class 5)
The time has surely come to consider some sort of concentration aid with BURROWS DIAMOND, easily capable enough of winning a moderate handicap of this nature and probably a bit better than the grade, but prevented from proving as much at present by a jumping technique that founders under late pressure. All set to gather up the leader when a last-flight faller at Newcastle the previous month, it was a mistake in front two out which cost the Diamond Boy mare dearly on this occasion, though at least both performances have served to confirm that a stiff 2m on slow ground continue to represent her current optimum requirements. Representing a handler in Sue Smith whose poor season is finally showing signs of turning the corner, with March’s win tally at the time of writing already her best in a month since January 2020, this halfsister to last year’s Lanzarote winner Burrows Edge can be given at least one more chance to get all the basics right.
LEICESTER, 12 March (Heavy)
1m7f201yds (+36yds) Hunters’ Chase (class 5)
There are too few minimum-distance hunter chases in the calendar to recommend PEACOCKS SECRET for one of those specifically. Dale Peters’ nineyear-old stayed further than that when a multiple winner at up to 2m4f for Shark Hanlon during 2018 and 19, though, and a fine near-6l second here to one-time Cheltenham Festival Plate runner-up (and still 135-rated) Tango De Juilley suggests a hefty chunk of that previous ability under Rules remains intact. Hugely respected as a trainer and rider between the flags, regularly taking on tough opposition in the likes of Yorkshire ahead of often easier opportunities nearer his Cambridgeshire base, it’s surprising in a way that it took until this season for Peters to register a hunter chase success. His Court Cave brother of smart hurdler Clondaw Court can, however,
taken to follow Kelso victor Kilkishen onto the scoresheet, with that previous Irish form suggesting a return to a sounder surface would hold no terrors.
HEREFORD, 13 March (Soft, good to soft places)
3m1f119yds (+105yds) Maiden Hurdle (class 4)
The bang in-form Sam Thomas is likely to be rewarded for his perseverance with GLENTROOL sooner rather than later, judged on this fine near-2l second on only a fifth outing in almost three years, though it might require a soggy spring having noted after the Passing Glance gelding’s March 2018 Carlisle bumper success that quick ground would be avoided. A halfbrother to, among others, a pair of pointing winners for Tom Ellis, this first step up beyond 2m4f was taken with aplomb, and all bar the marginally less exposed victor were left over a distance behind at the end of a well-run race at the trip. An initial mark in the mid-late 110s following this would be no disaster, nor would a return to a more galloping track in pursuit of a successful start in handicaps rate an inconvenience.
WARWICK, 14 March (Hurdle: soft, good to soft in places. Chase: good to soft, soft places)
2m (+6yds) Novices’ Hurdle (class 4) ERNESTO might just appreciate an easier second summer in this country than the first, having found himself necessarily pitched into competitive class 2 Flat staying handicap company (starting off with Royal Ascot) and mostly well held. The Reliable Man gelding from an immediate family full of Group formers had enough class and stamina about him to land a 1m6f Listed contest (good) in his native Germany, however, and a 4l second set an inadequate-looking stamina test here represents by far his most affirbe mative statement since attentions were turned to hurdles. Ian Williams’ five-year old will remain a novice until at least the autumn even if going one better before the present season ends, and a routine spring or summer novice event looks comfortably within compass, certainly at a trip closer to 2m4f and probably on a drier surface also.
3m5f (+139yds) 0-125 Handicap Chase (class 3)
There can’t be many horses in training at present who’ve found themselves pitched into a marathon handicap chase by the fourth start of their nascent Rules careers, and it wasn’t too surprising that it proved a little too much too early for A TIME TO SHINE, who came to a stop halfway through Warwick’s tough backline of five fences on the final circuit. The Oliver Sherwood-trained Malinas gelding had been sent off favourite on the back of a fine second on his handicap/chasing debut at Hereford a month earlier,
however, and if an extended 3m5f isn’t yet within compass something closer to 3m-3m1f certainly is. A scopey sixyear-old nephew of Badger Ales/Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase winner The Package, he can only get better in the jumping department with time and practice; and a staying event this spring around a Wetherby, Ffos Las or Worcester, where he could better work out how to get into a rhythm over his fences, might make for a suitable assignment.
PLUMPTON, 15 March (Good to soft)
2m3f164yds (+42yds) Novices’ Handicap Chase (class 5)
Still pretty low mileage for his age, and partnered by a jockey in Harrison Beswick with confidence well and truly up (this was his third consecutive winning ride when completing), FLECK IVY looked every inch the sort who’ll prove progressive in at least class 4 novice handicaps and handicaps well into the spring. Unflustered when deprived of the lead over the first handful of fences, Richard Bandey’s eight-year-old gelding distributed his resources wisely once out in front and always had sufficient in hand for the final uphill climb. A pulled-up effort on his British debut the previous November owed everything to a refusal to settle returning from 21 months out and nothing to the sound surface that day; indeed, as a son of Mustameet, drier conditions than today’s ought to prove an asset. Trips of 2m4f look plenty under Rules for now, despite an
Irish point win over further.
2m4f114yds (+174yds) Mares’ Handicap Hurdle (class 4)
MIDNIGHT GINGER’s failure to see out the trip stepped up to an extended 2m4f at Market Rasen (soft) three weeks previously simply increased fears that, as in 2019-20 over bumpers, she was destined to go the rest of this hurdling season without having proved able to build on a sparkling debut effort.
A half-length second returned to this drier (and drying) surface was far more like it, however, with only a topdrawer ride by Millie Wonnacott on the winner denying her better still and the pair comfortably clear.
It would be nice to see Alan King’s daughter of Midnight Legend build up some greater consistency from here on, but a mark that still had an accommodating look to it beforehand can help her do so, and the fact her hurdling success was gained on good ground augurs well should such conditions predominate into the spring.