The declarations were published yesterday for two of the feature races for tomorrow's opening day of Aintree's three-day Grand National meeting. Champion Hurdler Buveur D'Air will face just five rivals in the Aintree Hurdle and last year's winner Cue Card will have just six opponents in the Aintree Bowl.
Cue Card is 6/4 at BetVictor to make up for his fall at the third last in the Gold Cup whilst Buveur D'Air (2/5) looks to have a gilt-edged opportunity with the additional half-mile not considered a problem.
Good ground is the order of day at Wincanton and it will be interesting to see if there is any money for Comeonginger who is beginning to look extremely well handicapped for Chris Gordon. The vote, however, goes to Lou Vert (2.20) from the yard of champion trainer Paul Nicholls. The five-year-old looked ready for a step up to today's 2m 4f trip when runner up at Taunton off this mark last month on what was only his second start over fences.
Innocent Girl (2.50) is better over fences than hurdles but, despite being 10lbs wrong at the weights, can follow up last week's Taunton chase win reverting to timber. At the time of writing, there is no jockey booked for the mare and it will be interesting to see if trainer Harry Fry puts a claimer on board.
That said she will love the ground and has now won four of her six starts since joining Harry Fry who will be looking for better luck at Aintree having hit the bar at Cheltenham last month with Neon Wolf and Unowhatimeanharry.
Arctic Lady (3.55) looked as if she had never seen a fence when making her chase debut at Warwick but this winning Irish point-to-pointer is surely better than she showed on that occasion and did run well on good ground over timber last May. The market will tell us more about stable confidence but she is 4lbs lower and this looks a modest race for the track.
The official going description at Carlisle is soft and Mr Big Shot (3.00) is taken to maintain his 100% record for David Pipe despite giving 6lbs or more to his ten rivals. The selection has won a bumper and a novice hurdle for connections and it is obvious that connections are not going to over-face him this term.
There is plenty of pace in the competitive 2m 4f Handicap Chase and Freddies Portrait returns to the scene of his course win back in February from an 8lbs lower mark. He must go close but Mumgos Debut (4.05) can take this as long as his confidence has not been affected by his recent heavy fall at Ayr.
Trained by Lucinda Russell the selection would have won but for coming down at the last from just a 2lbs lower mark back in November and he is a better jumper of a fence than his form figures would suggest.
Rose Dobbin has her string in good form and whilst we won't be seeing any repetition of the great sub-editors dream headline “Dobbin wins the National” this week (husband Tony rode Lord Gyllene to victory in 1997) the hope is that Doktor Glaz (2.30) can land the novice chase.
The selection has the scope to jump a fence and won a hurdle at Wetherby last time from a 3lbs higher mark. Connections appear to have found a good opportunity for the seven-year-old who is owned in partnership by the trainer's parents.
For all your sporting odds check out BetVictor.com.
