Thursday 12th April - Race 5 - Alder Hey Imagine Appeal Red Rum Chase

[mowgli77]

:ok

[Bathtime For Rupert]

Re: Thursday 12th April - Race 5 - Alder Hey Imagine Appeal Red Rum Chase 4.15 Aintree - 2pts win De Boitron @ 14/1 (PP) I find myself not really fancying many of these runners, and I've ended up sticking by my Grand Annual selection, even though he's far from bombproof himself. This race tends to favour those towards the bottom of the weights, and although De Boitron doesn't look supremely well-handicapped, he's a horse who comes to life at this time of the year and should run his race. Too many of these are too high in the handicap in my eyes and I cannot have either Edgardo Sol or Tanks For That - the two at the head of the market. The former looks off a very high mark to me and I'll let him win if he can succeed off his revised chase rating. The latter has the trends against him and likewise, I'll let him win shouldering the burden of 11-12. A good pace looks likely in this with a few front runners and that should suit my selection here who tends to finish his races off strongly. One issue with him though is that he tends to get too far back before closing late but I think there's less chance of that around here in a smaller field than the hustle and bustle of Cheltenham. All of this horse's UK wins have come between January and April so it's been no surprise to see him work himself into form of late. It was clear that connections had their minds on the Grand Annual when this one ran at Musselburgh in February. Whilst that track wouldn't be too ideal for him, it showed he can run well on a sharp course. He stayed on well behind Tara Royal (8lbs better off with that rival here) without Graham Lee getting serious. I couldn't see him resort to using his whip when closing into a 4 3/4l 3rd so it seems likely that their main target was Cheltenham. He still ran really well under the circumstances. He got too far back at Cheltenham, as feared, before staying on into 6th. His jumping wasn't perfect but he did fairly well to plug on despite being well-held in the end. He appears to be coming to the boil, though, and he has a good weight here. If he's not too far away and jumps okay he should be staying on at the finish and hopefully can go a lot closer than at Cheltenham. 134, 130, 129, 139, 135 and 141 have been the last few winning ratings in this race so he appears to be in the right sort of ballpark, with only 1 of these carrying more than 10-8.