Wetherby Saturday

Charlie Hall Chase (Grade 2)

THE feature race of the weekend was the Grade 2 Charlie Hall Chase and the contest saw a return to form from The Real Whacker (Pat Neville/Brian Hughes), who seemed to benefit from the return to a sound surface, the 5/1 chance jumping really well and making all from the fourth fence.

He was sent for home early in the home straight and the chasing pack couldn’t quite lay a glove on him, with Bravemansgame (Paul Nicholls/Harry Cobden) finishing second in this race again, but beaten a comfortable three and a half lengths at the line, with no excuses.

Sam Brown (Anthony Honeyball/Rex Dingle) fared best of the rest another length and a quarter behind, with Conflated well held having looked rusty, and seeming to confirm that he will have a campaign mapped towards the Grand National.

Brian Hughes was having his first ever ride in the Charlie Hall and dedicated the win to close friend Graham Lee, who was stable jockey for Howard Johnson when Hughes was starting out at the same stable.

Keeping faith

Neville, who has recently moved stables to Coverham, near Middleham, said: “That was brilliant, I’m delighted to get him back. I never wrote him off, some people did, but we just had no luck last year. Every time we went to run him, the sky opened the night before.

“I had him fairly right going to Listowel and we were just unfortunate he unseated there. We were happy coming here today with the ground. I don’t think I’ll run him again on heavy, as we did it a few days last year when we were just unlucky the rain kept coming before he ran.

“The ground is the key to him. We won’t go to Haydock for the Betfair Chase, we’ll go for the King George maybe, the Cotswold Chase again and hopefully then the Gold Cup. It’s all ground dependent.

“We’ve recently moved yards and we’ve never had better facilities. We’re a neighbour of Karl Burke, Jedd O’Keeffe, and Ed Bethell and we’re getting on great. Our landlady is Sally Hall and her uncle was Charlie Hall, so it’s great to be going back home with the prize. We’ll take her for a drink maybe tonight and I might get a discount on the rent!”

West Yorkshire Hurdle

Just a week after finishing out of the frame in a Pertemps Qualifier at Cheltenham, Beacon Edge (Gordon Elliott/Danny Gilligan) gained his first blacktype win over timber since the 2021 Boyne Hurdle, when winning a weak renewal of the Grade 2 Bet365 (West Yorkshire) Hurdle.

With non-runners reducing the field to four, of whom Allmankind was a very doubtful stayer, 9/4 second-favourite Beacon Edge didn’t need to find much improvement on his Cheltenham run to get the better of Twig (Ben Pauling/Beau Morgan) by two and a half lengths, although things might have been different had odds-on favourite Kateira (Dan/Harry Skelton) not blundered at the penultimate flight, when seemingly travelling best.

Kateira’s untimely blunder mirrored that of Luccia in the Bet365 Mares’ Hurdle half an hour earlier, when Nicky Henderson’s Champion Hurdle third Luccia lost all chance when making a bad error at the same hurdle, causing Nico de Boinville to pull her up.

It’s worth noting that the 4/9 favourite was niggled at the time, and not travelling as well as eventual winner Take No Chances (Dan/Harry Skelton), who won well despite dropping down to two miles for the first time since her bumper days.

The winner is thriving and will surely win more Pattern races given her adaptability, while her dam was a useful chaser for Andy Lynch/Dessie Hughes on a sound surface, suggesting fences could bring out even more.

Carlisle Sunday

Colin Parker Memorial (Listed)

MARBLE Sands (Graeme McPherson and David Killahena/Kielan Woods) was produced with a well-timed run to land the Listed Colin Parker Memorial Intermediate Chase at Carlisle on Sunday, his victory made easier by the defection of likely hotpot Grey Dawning. Sent off at 15/8, the grey had too many guns at the finish for favourite Colonel Harry (Jamie Snowden/Gavin Sheehan).

Traprain Law led before Colonel Harry took over before the fourth fence and that pair then had a tussle at the head of affairs, which Colonel Harry won, but he was merely setting the race up for the smooth-travelling Marble Sands, who jumped on at the last and pulled away from the tired runner-up to score by three and three-quarter lengths, with Traprain Law third of the four runners.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” said McPherson. “The conditions looked perfect - he won a couple last year, but he didn’t carry a penalty – so he was going there off a nice weight.

Stars aligned

“The stars aligned for him, and it was a great place to start a second season of chasing. He is so consistent; he’s run in a few graded races, but if you take those out of the mix, he’s barely been out of the top three for the past four years.

“He tries his heart out, he’s a dream to train, and I just wish I had a yard full of them. It really only is pencilled in, but there’s the Rehearsal Chase at the end of November up at Newcastle.

“We’ve always thought he’ll get further, he’ll get the best part of three miles, but he doesn’t like it very soft, so if it did get that way we’d have to think again.”

The other Listed event on the card was the Houghton Mares’ Chase, which was won by 5/1 shot Terresita (Lucy Wadham/Gavin Sheehan), who got the better of warm favourite Galia Des Liteaux (Dan/Harry Skelton) by a length and a quarter.

Ascot Saturday

‘Superstar’ Chianti shines bright

THE most significant performance at Ascot’s season opener came from Cheltenham Festival winner Chianti Classico (Kim Bailey/Tom Bellamy), who defied top weight of 12 stone in making virtually all the running to justify 11/4 favouritism by three lengths from Tom Lacey’s Highstakesplayer.

“Chianti Classico is a real superstar,” said a delighted Bailey. “I’ve always said the Grand National is going to be his main aim this season. We’ll see how he comes out of this, and we might think about the Becher Chase.”

Around the tracks

The victory of the Stuart Crawford-trained Ottizzini at Ayr on Saturday was par for the course for the Larne-based trainer, who has enjoyed plenty of success at what is one of his local tracks, but it was of greater import for rider Daryl Jacob, who joined the elite band of jump jockeys to have ridden 1,000 winners. The joy of his achievement was short-lived for Jacob, as he broke a collar bone in a schooling fall at Henry de Bromhead’s yard on Monday and now faces another spell on the sidelines.