Get all of your tips and picks for day 1 of the 2023 edition of the Aintree Festival!
AINTREE FESTIVAL – DAY 1
Race 1 – SAINT ROI 7/2
SAINT ROI is the value alternative in the Racehorse Lotto Manifesto Novices’ Chase. Stage Star sets the standard based on his very brave win in the Turners Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham, his fourth victory from five outings over fences.
He benefitted from an astute front-running ride from Harry Cobden there but is unlikely to be left alone this time and he has been busy enough. Banbridge has been saved for this race, with Joseph O’Brien choosing to skip Cheltenham to wait for this but with rain around, the ground will go against him.
Saint Roi is a Grade One winner over an extended two miles but always finishes strongly and has looked ready for a step up in trip for some time.
RACE 2 – ZENTA 6/5
Mullins can also strike in the other Grade One, the Jewson Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle, with ZENTA. She stepped up massively on what she had achieved previously when beaten less than three lengths by stablemates Lossiemouth and Gala Marceau in the Triumph last month.
That form is head and shoulders the best on offer here, with the UK-trained juveniles below their Irish counterparts this season. Zenta was having just her second run for Mullins at Cheltenham and she rates as banker material.
Latenightpass holds strong claims to win back-to-back renewals of the Randox Foxhunters’ Open Hunters’ Chase for the all-conquering Tom Ellis and Gina Andrews, with Douglas Talking taken to continue his rapid improvement in the Close Brothers Red Rum Handicap Chase.
Race 3 – AHOY SENOR 11/4
AHOY SENOR can bounce back from his fall in the Cheltenham Gold Cup to win at the Grand National meeting for the third successive year in the Alder Hey Aintree Bowl Chase.
It is a big week for Lucinda Russell given she houses the Grand National favourite Corach Rambler and Ahoy Senor can get the stable off to a good start as he clearly loves the Merseyside air, reserving his best performances of the last two seasons for April.
An unconsidered 66/1 chance when he won the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle two years ago, 12 months ago he reversed his Cheltenham form with L’Homme Presse to win the Mildmay Novices’ Chase. Subsequent King George winner and Gold Cup runner-up Bravemansgame was even further behind that day, though it is widely accepted he was not at his best so rates a big danger.
He will have had a hard race at Cheltenham, though, with the same sentiment applying to Conflated. Ahoy Senor came down when still travelling well in the Gold Cup, too far out to say what would have happened, and he will be ridden by champion jockey Brian Hughes for the first time, with Derek Fox nursing a sore shoulder.
There are two potential flies in the ointment in Henry de Bromhead’s 2022 Gold Cup winner A Plus Tard and Shishkin, who flew home in the Ryanair after a horrendous error coming down the hill. It remains to be seen which Shishkin turns up, so with that in mind, Ahoy Senor looks a safer bet.
Race 4 – CONSTITUTION HILL 1/10
While Nicky Henderson perhaps cannot bank on Shishkin these days, the same can not be said of CONSTITUTION HILL. The Champion Hurdle winner steps up to two and a half miles for the first time in the William Hill Aintree Hurdle and it should be another cakewalk.
Bar letting fly at the last at Cheltenham, he has looked bombproof and another half-mile is unlikely to prove his undoing. He has 16lb in hand over his nearest rival, but already we are thinking of the exciting possibility of seeing him over fences next season.
