Saturday’s
meeting at Royal Ascot saw a brighter light shine on the hopes of Logician continuing on
towards a tilt at the Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup in less than a month’s time, with a
two and a half length, third placing in the Shenley Enterprises Novices’ Chase.
With the surface still quite soft underfoot,
Logician lumbered his topweight of 11 stone 12 pounds ( 75.3 kgs. ) around the 3900 metres
course, displaying a marked improvement in jumping prowess from his previous run at
Sandown.
There was, however, one minor blemish - a
mistake at the last - that probably kept him from finishing closer when looking as though
he may be right in the finishing argument, but certainly keeping aspirations high that he
will give an excellent account of himself on March 13th should connections take the gamble
on the horse making further progress from this most recent outing.
He would go into the Gold Cup as a rank
outsider, but there’s no better recipe for success than an Aussie going into battle
as the underdog - so whilst our English analysts may not be currently impressed by his
bark, they’d better watch out for his bite !!!!!
Keep posted to the site for trainer Tony
Noonan’s view on the run and his chances of competing at Cheltenham.
In the meantime, our other budding
international star, Marlborough continues to please his trainer, Jim Houlahan as he heads
towards the Nakayama Grand Jump on April 14th.
"He’s been going really good here at
home and ran a real nice race at Caulfield and he’s been schooling nicely too"
commented Houlahan, who will not be making the journey to Japan with his champion jumper,
opting to stay at home and monitor his other runners over the Easter and winter periods.
Marlborough is still scheduled to depart our
shores on March 12th and will probably have just the one more run on the flat to fit him
for his two start campaign in Japan, which will commence with the Pegasus Stakes over 3350
metres on Saturday, March 24th and culminating with the race of his life 3 weeks later,
around a testing 4250 metres figure eight circuit.
So make sure to do as I always do - and tell
everyone to GO JUMP !!!! |
