| Staying power for Scottish National
By David Thorpe
Top-class staying chases come thick and fast at this time of year and
this Saturday sees some of the best staying chasers around contest the
Scottish Grand National at Ayr.
Ferdy Murphy’s Nine De Saviola second in the Irish National is
likely to be among the favourites and given the trainer’s fine record
in races of this type Nine De Saviola is a horse well worth considering.
The downside is that the horse must face another long, tough race on fast
ground very quickly after his Irish Grand National performance so maybe
another epic performance might be found to be just out of his reach.
Ferdy Murphy has also declared New Alco for this race and its unlikely
that both horses will run. Whichever this shrewdest of trainers chooses
to run in this race and whichever jockey Graham Lee chooses to ride is
well worth considering.
Welsh trainer Peter Bowen usually comes into his own in the summer months
and he has an outstanding record with the horses he sends to Scotland.
He will be represented by Blue Splash in the Scottish Grand National and
while it’s hard to see this horse actually winning the race he represents
one of the best each-way bets this column has seen for a very long time.
English-based trainers must always be respected when they send horses
to Scotland and the best contender from England could be the Phillip Hobbs-trained
Parsons Legacy,
This horse has the class to win a Scottish National and the ground may
be in his favour but he may have just a little too much weight to make
him a realistic contender in this contest. There are also doubts about
this horse’s willingness to battle when the going gets tough, so
he is perhaps best avoided.
Jonjo O’Neill has declared Drombeag winner of the Banks race at
Cheltenham. He will definitely stay the trip but it’s hard to see
this fellow having the speed to feature in this race except in the unlikely
event that we get soft ground.
Nigel Twiston Davies is a trainer with a phenomenal Grand National record.
His horse Baron Windrush showed he had returned to form in spectacular
fashion when being an easy winner of the Midlands Grand National in March.
He gets into this race off a very fine weight and is the outstanding bet
in the Scottish Grand National. |
