Is the Grand National becoming a 72-hour declaration race a positive step? And who could tee up a strong Newbury bid with a win at Windsor this week?
Windsor to provide major pointer
The weights for the William Hill Hurdle were released this week and although we didn’t necessarily learn a great deal at that particular juncture due to no Irish horses being involved – as was the case on the day last year – the February 7 feature does look a bit of a minefield for antepost punters at present.
The principal reason for that is the Winter Million fixtures this weekend.
There are 16 runners declared for Friday’s Fitzdares Sovereign Handicap Hurdle at Windsor and no fewer than a dozen of them are entered for Newbury as well, with a couple of other William Hill possibles (Milldam and Faivoir) engaged over two miles and three furlongs at Ascot this Saturday.
The Windsor prize money is excellent and clearly hard to resist, but Friday’s race could also provide us with the most important final clues ahead of the more prestigious race in three weeks’ time.
Admittedly, the first two home in last year’s William Hill Hurdle were relatively fresh horses but six others went into Newbury via a run at Windsor’s mid-January jamboree, with Navajo Indy and Beat The Bat faring best in third and fifth respectively.
That doesn’t tell the whole story, though, as Winter Million winner Secret Squirrel went off the 100/30 favourite for the William Hill under a 5lb penalty, having been as big as 12/1 prior to justifying strong support in the Sovereign. And he was bang in the mix for at least a place too before falling at the last obstacle to leave Joyeuse to come home eight lengths clear.
Secret Squirrel was a progressive second-season hurdler and, having already touched on some of the likely novice types in Newbury contention last week, including Great Fleet for Dan Skelton, his stablemate Live Conti is another noteworthy horse potentially set to run in both races.
He was beaten almost out of sight behind Wilful in Ascot’s big handicap hurdle in December but he was friendless in the market there and pulled like mad through the early stages of the race which didn’t help his cause.
Eased a pound for the first run back since the spring, he now goes in a hood and a tongue-tie for the first time at Windsor and Harry Skelton stays loyal which may or may not amount to something.
The five-year-old is considered a very bright chase prospect but it’s worth recalling he was second to Murcia in the Grade 1 juvenile race at Aintree last season, that obviously coming on a flat, left-handed track. Given he’s 33/1 for the William Hill Hurdle at the time of writing, it’s really not hard to see him proving to be this year’s antepost springer.
Walsh out to end long wait for second Thyestes
Another major handicap fast approaching is next week’s Goffs Thyestes Handicap Chase.
Nick Rockett became the third horse to complete the Gowran-Grand National double last year, following in the footsteps of Hedgehunter (2005) and Numbersixvalverde (2006), and Willie Mullins – trainer of Nick Rockett and Hedgehunter on top of eight other Thyestes winners – is responsible for 12 of the 38 entries at this point.
You just sense that Scottish National winner Captain Cody is building up quite nicely towards something significant, while the novice Gold Dancer would be fascinating if pitched in here following decent seconds behind Romeo Coolio and Final Demand at Fairyhouse and Limerick.
The two market leaders, however, are trained elsewhere. They are both owned by JP McManus, though, with Robert Tyner's Better Times Ahead on a roll with back-to-back Fairyhouse wins when last seen in November.
The one of even more interest is Buachaillbocht for Ted Walsh, whose name already appears on the roll of honour here having saddled Roc De Prince to win a remarkable 35 years ago.
This horse could just creep into the Thyestes at the foot of the weights having been sixth when sent off co-favourite for the Paddy Power at Leopardstown over Christmas. He was very well backed there after getting in as one of the reverses (another McManus hope the NR) and I thought his effort should be marked up quite a lot given how he was hampered by a horse falling in front of him when the field packed up heading to the final ditch (replay below).
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He did well to recover from that incident three-out and stayed on to the line, having also raced for most of the way tight to the inside whereas the winner (and not the only one at that festive fixture) had been positioned much wider on the track.
Buachaillbocht has never raced at Gowran before but all four of his career wins have come on right-handed circuits (Tramore, Fairyhouse and Punchestown twice) and the stoutly-bred eight-year-old remains open to more improvement over staying trips.
Trading at 8/1 with Paddy Power and Sky Bet, he looks a McManus gamble waiting to happen.
Grand plans not necessarily for the better
It was interesting to learn that the Randox Grand National will join the Betfred Derby in becoming the latest UK race to have a 72-hour declaration stage from this year.
Borrowing from the likes of the Melbourne Cup, Breeders’ Cup and other international organisations that try to help build the hype around their marquee events by having runner and rider details set in stone earlier than may be the norm, this appears to have been in the pipeline for a while.
However, I couldn’t help but ask myself a couple of questions upon hearing the news.
Firstly, what material difference will it actually make to anyone, anywhere? Other than potentially hacking off some of the key practitioners involved, not least Willie Mullins who you’d imagine would be more than happy to leave his final judgements to the morning of the race in a perfect world.
They say the great race is broadcast to around 170 countries but that’s surely not a new development and, over here at least, we’re generally building up to Aintree for weeks on end, so I can’t see the benefit of an extra day with the decs, especially compared to the aforementioned Epsom Classic which at least includes a draw ceremony and does have some sort of bearing on the actual event itself.
The second and perhaps more serious question would be: could it even have a detrimental effect for the wider public who like to get involved in our sport for the one day in early-April?
The reserve system understandably came back into play last year after the reduction in the field size limit from 40 to 34, reserves having been binned altogether in 2023, largely due to technical and logistical complaints from various media outlets and bookmakers - they had to be slotted in higher up on the racecard in place of the withdrawn horses which seemed to cause a deal of consternation when it came to returning the full results among other things.
But now we’re looking at the introduction of six reserves, on top of the greater window for things to potentially go amiss between final declarations on the Wednesday morning and 1pm on Friday – the cut-off point for those on standby to replace any forced out of the race.
In my experience punters generally like these things to be kept as simple as possible so while the embarrassment of – in a worst case scenario – ending up with only 28 or 29 runners or something drastic has on the face of it been alleviated, we are going back to 40 National names being put in print in midweek, with a frustrating/confusing caveat of ‘up to six of them might not actually run’.
I fail to see how that is a major step forward.
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