Ski Lodge makes a belated return at Lingfield on Tuesday

November 17

Helnwein ran a corker to finish second in the prestigious Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham yesterday, travelling like a dream in the testing ground for Tom Bellamy and only giving best to the progressive Alexei after the final flight.

Alan takes the view that Helnwein is at his best either early or late in the season and that for some reason he goes on the missing list in the middle of winter, so it will come as no surprise if he is aimed at another of these big handicaps before Christmas.

Elgin won the Greatwood for us in 2017 and then ran respectably to finish sixth in the valuable pre-festive two-miler at Ascot, so that race could well be on the short list for Helnwein, whose performance delighted Noel Fehily and his enthusiastic band of racing club members.

Noel will be hoping Ski Lodge, another of his syndicated horses based at Barbury, can go one better when he makes his belated reappearance in a six-runner handicap at Lingfield tomorrow.

Alan, who might well eventually opt to go down the novice chase route with bumper winner Ski Lodge, said:”We made too much use of him on his first start over hurdles but he showed the benefit of that run when winning a maiden hurdle next time at Haydock.

“Unfortunately, Ski Lodge pulled muscles very badly afterwards, and by the time I had got him right again and ready to run the ground had dried up too much to take a risk.”

We are all looking forward to Ski Lodge’s return as he is rated one of our exciting young horses, but it is not far short of a calendar year since his last run, so, while we hope he’ll be a major player, obviously after such a long absence he won’t be cherry-ripe.

Also reappearing at Lingfield after a long break, in her case seven months plus, is Irish Chorus, who makes her debut over fences in the finale.

Irish Chorus has shown promise both in bumpers and over hurdles, and she would surely have broken her duck over timber at Doncaster in March, being 10 lengths clear when she fell at the last.

She might have been remembering that tumble when she subsequently disappointed at Ayr a month later as her jumping was not always fluent. However, she has done plenty of schooling over the larger obstacles at home and it will be interesting to see how she shapes.

We have just the one runner on Wednesday, Betterforeveryone making the long journey to Hexham to win his third race in a row over fences. He won over this course and distance back in March and started this season where he left off when winning at Bangor last month, so, being proven in the likely soft ground, he ought to be competitive again.