The horse racing broadcaster offers up his best bets for the opening day of the Grand National Festival at Aintree, including one for the feature race, the Aintree Hurdle.
With the sun beating down and the only water being that poured on in copious amounts via watering, Aintree is likely to have a different feel this week.
The National course will likely ride good-to-soft all week, with the pop-up watering system helping deliver irrigation far easier than the logistical issues faced on the Mildmay course, especially as the week progresses. While the latter may start with good-to-soft in the description on Thursday, it will be no surprise if that has disappeared by Saturday.
There are six races on ITV each day, starting with an above-average turnout for the 2m 4f Manifesto Novices Chase, perhaps another welcome byproduct of removing the race over this distance from the Festival. JANGO BAIE / (13:45 Aintree) only just got away with the drop in trip when winning the Arkle and the return to this distance will be right up his street. He does face new challengers in Gidleigh Park and Impaire Et Passe, both of whom deserve respect. Gidleigh Park gets passed over mainly because of durability, his season having been interrupted by fibrillating heart issues, while Impaire Et Passe, who took the notable scalp of Bob Olinger in the Aintree Hurdle at this meeting last year, has just lacked fluency at times since going chasing. It is a marginal call at the prices, but Jango Baie just looks the more solid option.
Jango Baie’s stable companion Lulamba’s absence from the Grade 1 Juvenile Hurdle throws the race wide open, and it is the Fred Winter rather than the Triumph that looks the key line of form. Puturhandstogether ran out a very impressive winner and will understandably have lots of supporters but WENDROCK / (14:20 Aintree) may have put up a better performance than he was given credit for. He met trouble two out, which occurred on a shot change on the cameras and wasn’t widely picked up in the reporting of his run. Without that, he would have been a fair bit closer, and coupled with a 6lb pull at the weights makes him look decent value.
For the rest of the card, the selections are driven by horses that have shown their form at this meeting in the past and there is no better example of that than the mercurial AHOY SENOR / (14:55 Aintree) who burst onto the scene when winning the Sefton at 66/1 back in 2021. He followed up a year later in another Grade 1 over fences and has finished runner-up in this race for the last two seasons. It is an up-to-standard renewal with Spillane’s Tower being kept for this by his connections, but such is the record of Ahoy Senor round here, which contrasts so markedly with his travails elsewhere, that he looks worth sticking with.
Next up, the feature race of the day and the clash we were deprived of at Cheltenham between Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth in the 2m 4f Aintree Hurdle. The irony will not have been lost that had Lossiemouth’s connections gone the Champion Hurdle route she would likely have been the beneficiary of the jumping lapses that befell State Man and Constitution Hill, not least because the winner Golden Ace would have run in the Mares instead. I remain loyal to CONSTITUTION HILL / (15:30 Aintree), but there is no doubt that the increase in trip does bring Lossiemouth more into calculations than when she was outpaced at an early stage behind Constitution Hill in the Christmas Hurdle. It is one of the races of the season and a fascinating end to the four Grade 1s that give Aintree a blazing start to match the weather.
The race over the larger obstacles is the Foxhunters, which has drawn a maximum field of 30. The old man of the party is BENNY’S KING / (16:05 Aintree) at the tender age of 14, but he showed he was no back number when winning at Leicester last time. Runner-up in the race for the last two seasons, his prominent run style is an asset as long as he can hold his place early on the faster ground. He was second on a similar surface back in 2023 and as mentioned above, it is likely plenty of water will have been put on the National course so hopefully his older legs can propel him fast enough to keep up with his younger rivals, one of whom is no less than eight years younger.
The last of the six races on ITV was won last season in blazing fashion by SANS BRUIT / (16:40 Aintree) under an aggressive Bryony Frost ride. A less than sparkling season has seen Paul Nicholls’ charge lining up in the race off exactly the same mark as 12 months ago. The issue is deciding whether he retains the ability, or the enthusiasm, to stage an encore but there is not much pace in the race and he has the opportunity to be in the right place tactically. Primoz, who was badly inconvenienced by the standing start in his race at the Festival, is the obvious alternative.
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