Our timefigure expert Graeme North provides his analysis and highlights a Willie Mullins novice hurdler with a bright future.
Readers of a certain age will remember with fondness a chaser named Wayward Lad. Trained by the Dickinson family, he won the King George VI Chase three times and twice finished placed in the Gold Cup but was best known as a spectacular jumper often photographed charismatically in mid-flight splendour. The Jukebox Man’s chasing debut at Newbury last Friday, as well as the mid-air images posted on social media, brought back some of those Wayward Lad memories.
“We’re not going to fall into the trap of not running a good horse,” trainer Ben Pauling, a former assistant to Nicky Henderson, was quoted after his win in the Grade 2 John Francome Novices’ Chase, and anyone who has the best interests of the winter game at heart will welcome that adventurous mindset sadly lacking …