Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter

So many top jumpers ran at Cheltenham during this week´s Festival (where our tip Lord Windermere won the Gold Cup at odds of 20-1!) that there cannot be many left, but there still 5 jumps meetings today in the U.K. and Ireland, and certainly both Kempton and Uttoxeter are putting on decent cards with some very competitive races.


The Midlands Grand National over an extended 4 miles at 16.50 CET at the latter track is the day´s best race, and features a horse that could have actually run in the Gold Cup - Harry Topper (Kim Bailey/ Nick Scholfield); he is the class act but must carry a huge weight.and concedes 19 lbs or more all round. In fact 7 of the 16 runners are out of the handicap as a result. He is obviously the best horse in the field, but in our opinion he cannot win with this weight on ground that is possibly drying out out too much for hi. DFavid Pipe has an excellent record here and has won tnhe last 3 runnings-. He had a good chance of a fourth success as both his runners Junior (Conor O´Farrell) and Goulanes /Richard Johnson) are on our short list, although it is slightly worrying that Pipe has sent his main jockey Tom Scudamore to Kempton.

Only real specialists have any hopes of winning races like this, so it is clear that many of these have met before, especially in the Eider Chase or the Welsh Grand Natjonal, both races that were run this year on very heavy ground- very different from the conditions that will obtain today. The Eider winner Wyck Hill (David Bridgwater/ Mark Walsh) has gone up in the weights, and Sun Cloud (Malcolm Jefferson/ Brian Hughes), who fell when still going well, and Junior meet him on much better terms today. Goulanes has not run since being pulled up at Chepstow in late December but has an obvious chance on his best form, so basically we expect another Pipe winner.

The Kempton card features two quite valuable handicaps. but they both look very difficult. From the betting point of view, the novice hurdle at 17.05 could be more interesting. The 3 previous winners must all be respected, but we expect the winner now to come from the unpenalised runners, and the ones to catch the eye are Karl Burke´s Fair Loch and David Elsworth´s debutant Solar Sky. The latter was almost group class on the flat and as Elsworth has very few N.H. runners these days we think he must be taken seriously: Who has forgotten Dessie´s exploits at this track?