The Criquette Head-Maarek-trained colt landed the Listed Prix Omnium II by four lengths from Joursanvault in
The Criquette Head-Maarek-trained colt landed the Listed Prix Omnium II by four lengths from Joursanvault in the hands of Richard Hughes.Coral have cut the colt’s Epsom odds to 8-1, from 10-1, while William Hill and Ladbrokes quote 10-1.American Post, who carries the colours of Khalid Abdullah, recorded stylish wins in the Grand Criterium and Racing Post Trophy as a two-year-old.. Numbers alone suggest Nicholls should have an influence on the contest and the likelihood is that Irbee (next best 3.45) will be his most solid representative. The old devil was fourth here 12 months ago and ran well in the Foxhunters at the Festival until his stamina conked out.American Post impressesAmerican Post’s odds for the Derby were trimmed yesterday after he made a winning start to his Classic season at Saint-Cloud. The Mick Easterby-trained 11-year-old overcame a long absence on his latest start to score for Greenall in a hunter chase at Ascot, while other notable entries including Cape Stormer and Maidstone Monument.Polly Gundry rides Torduff Express for Paul Nicholls, who also runs General Claremont, Irbee and Silence Reigns. Jockey Tom Greenall, who failed to get the two wins he needed to allow him to ride in the main event on Saturday, could gain consolation with victory aboard Sikander A Azam. Le Duc did it last season and this time it looks the turn of CHERUB (nap 3.10), who was one of the least experienced at Cheltenham, but was still very much in contention until entering a battle with the final obstacle.A total of 25 runners will go to post for the first race over the Grand National course, the Fox Hunters’ Chase for amateur riders. Although the pair meet on level weights again, the flat track should suit his style of racing as he got his hurdling career off to a winning start when taking a Listed event at Wetherby in November.However, this is a consolation race for the Triumph which can go to a horse which exhibited promise without success at the base of Cleeve Hill.
Yet Royal Rosa heads into the Grade Two contest on the back of a victory over Royal & SunAlliance Novices’ Hurdle winner Fundamentalist at the Merseyside venue. Only the worry that sickness may have visited his lodgings prevents him being the selection. That burden falls easily on the course-and-distance winner Iris’s Gift (2.00).Made In Japan and Howle Hill, first and fifth respectively in the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham, will lock horns again in the 19-runner four-year-old novices’ hurdle. Howle Hill was beaten just seven lengths at Cheltenham and did not quite get up the hill. As well as Iris’s Gift and Sh Boom, Jonjo O’Neill saddles Hasty Prince, while County Durham-based handler Howard Johnson has just the one entry in Royal Rosa.The last named, a record 340,000 guineas purchase at last year’s Doncaster Spring Sales, has tasted defeat only once over timber when going down to Sh Boom at Haydock.
Opposites attract, in the racing sense at least.Aintree has, of course, the Grand National as its jutting centrepiece, but it is a lot more than that. There is plenty of money sloshing around here, as well as a cultural counterpoint for those who have been pottering through the antique inns of Gloucestershire before racing.Liverpool, like the fences it provides once each day for the meeting which begins this afternoon, is unique. Like Cheltenham, however, it attracts the best quality horses.Thus, today, we have First Gold, a flamboyant, 14-length winner of the Martell Cup 12 months ago, attempting to put his name on the race’s log once again. First Gold (2.35) tried to lead them a merry dance in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and indeed did so until his legs suggested he had just been to one. This terrain, however, is more to his liking and another solo tour de force is expected. “I am very happy with him,” Fran?s Doumen, the trainer, said yesterday. “He has recovered very well [from the Gold Cup] and that is why I decided to run him.”Even Doumen’s famous self-confidence may be checked for a moment today when he spots the grey figure of Iris’s Gift, the horse which beat his Baracouda in the Stayers’ Hurdle at the Festival, an eventuality the French trainer considered less likely than the second coming (and he has always imagined himself in the lead role for that).Iris’s Gift faces seven rivals in the Liverpool Hurdle including stablemate Sh Boom, the Stayers’ Hurdle third, Crystal D’Ainay, and the veteran Deano’s Beeno.
Other meetings, other venues would fail horribly when juxtaposed to the great Festival in the Cotswolds. The Aintree congregation, though, has it just right.
You do not want comparisons with the great spa town, and when it comes to comparisons, there is nothing much to connect Cheltenham with Liverpool L9. It was accelerated to working speed using a compressed air ramp.The ram jet operates at higher speed, and has no moving parts.MICHAEL K BALDWIN Sittingbourne, Kent Sweet music Sir: My earliest recollection of the brilliant Peter Ustinov was a lunchtime radio programme during the Second World War called Workers Playtime from “somewhere in Britain”. The duo, who have been with the four-year-old team from day one, bade farewell following their elimination from the Elite League play-offs at the Odyssey Arena on Sunday.In East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Tuesday the New Jersey Devils’ Pat Burns recorded his 500th career win as the Devils tied Philadelphia for the lead in the NHL’s Atlantic Division with a 5-0 victory over New York Rangers Burns became the ninth coach to reach that level.. He, and other artists, were entertaining factory workers during their lunch break and his act that day was to make a sound like a violin playing something by Bach! Very original, very special and very funny.