Midlands Grand National and more

Traditionally the Uttoxeter meeting featuring the Midlands Grand National over 4 miles 1 /2 furlongs at 16.50 CET, ends Cheltenham week and most of the big guns will be there, including AP McCoy who rides ther strong favourite Catching On for Jonjo O´Neill; he was a very easy winner of the Devon National 11days ago and clearly can go in again under a fixed pnalty of 6 lbs. However we had a fairy tale result yesterday when Coneygree won the Gold Cup for a small trainer Mark Bradstock and a relatively young jockey Nico de Boinville (and if you read our comments yesterday, you should have backed him!) and they can repeat the feat today with his elder half-brother Carruthers, who has been given a real chance by the handicapper and will find the very soft ground to his liking. David Pipe usually targets this race and has won it for the past 4 years; he has no runners today, but could still land a double in the supporting races with Top Wood at 15.40 and Shotavodka at 16.15, both partnered by Conor O´Farrell.

There is also a good jumping card at Kempton, with a valuable hurdle handicap at 15.20 as the main feature. Like the Uttoxeter race, this has a big field and looks as tricky as any Cheltenham handicap, but we like Communicator (Jonjo O´Neill/ Richie McLernon), who has shown great promise in his 3 races over sticks and could have been let in here lightly. Katgary (Paul Nicholls/ Sean Bowen) and CD winner Under the Phone (Robin Dickin/ Joseph Palmowski) are two of the main dangers.

Limngfiueld stages the first European Group race of 2015, the Winter Derby at 16.05 over 10 furlongs. Most of the runners ran in the trial here 3 weeks ago, with Grendisar (Marco Botti/ Martin Harley) just holding on in a very tight finish; Grandeur (Jeremy Noseda/ Ryan Moore) was a close fourth after not getting a clear run, he can reverse the form this time. There are also two listed races on the card, and we expect the much-improved Four Seasons (Charlie Appleby/ Adam Kirby) to win his fourth race in succession (and third over this CD=) at 15.30, and Dungannon (Andrew Balding/ Thomas Brown) to score at 16.40.