Race Preview - Saturday 22nd August - UPDATED
By David Hucker
Jump racing returned from its summer break at Perth last weekend and Newton Abbot opens its doors again this Saturday with a six-race card featuring the £30,000 Aubrey Loze Memorial Handicap Hurdle.
The meeting comes at the start of National Racehorse Week, a nationwide celebration of racehorses highlighting their care, training, and welfare. Nearly 100 venues across Great Britain, including training yards, studs, and aftercare centres, will be open free to the public.
Soul Icon, whose last three runs have been in Class1 contests, heads the weights in the feature race over two and three-quarter miles and he will feel more at home here, having contested Market Rasen's highly competitive Betway Summer Plate last time. The lightly-raced Letterston Lily has been chosen over her full sister and stable companion Letterston Lady by trainer Mikey Bowen and Handlethekettle, four times a winner over hurdles, has to overcome an absence of 411 days, having not run since July last year.
The one who could come out on top is dual course winner Supreme Yeats, who shares bottom weight of 10-10. Trainer Dan Skelton, who is chasing Martin Pipe's all-time record of 243 winners in a season, went into the break with 65 on the board and was quick out of the blocks with two winners at Market Rasen when racing resumed. After drawing a blank at Worcester on Wednesday, he added two more at his local course Stratford on Thursday to take his score to 69.
The action starts at 1.55pm with the Celebrating National Racehorse Week Novices' Hurdle in which the hat-trick seeking Kings Scholar, trained by Olly Murphy, sets the standard. He has a 12lb penalty for his two wins, but conditional jockey Tom Hutsby's 10lb claim reduces the burden. Skelton relies on Stratford winner Playful Fox from his two entries and another for the shortlist is Uttoxeter winner Whermyrosemarygoes, whose name, as music lovers of a certain age will know, is derived from a chart-topping record by Edison Lighthouse.
Lambourn trainer Nick Scholfield, who has clocked up eight winners already this season, has chosen Limerick Leader, a course winner when trained by Alison Thorpe, from his three entries in the Happy 80th Birthday John Lane Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Chase over three and a quarter miles. He has yet to score in three starts for his new stable and preference is for My Girl Katie, a winner here last time, who can confirm the form with runner-up Great Ange on 4lb worse terms.
Four-time course winner Gore Point carries top weight in the Philip Wilson Memorial Novices' Limited Handicap Chase, but he still looks the one to beat. The danger should be Skelton's Ice Jet, who was running well at Uttoxeter before the race was stopped and declared void.
There are three course winners in the Torbay Weekly Handicap Hurdle over two and a half miles in the shape of Hillsin, Saucats and Mi Sueno. Skelton runs Time Interval, who makes his stable debut, and Hawa Jumeriah, who has been knocking on the door, could make the frame again.
Three-time course winner Max Of Stars and dual course winner Arctic Voyage are amongst six runners in the closing Sun Racing Summer Jumps Championship Handicap Hurdle. Skelton runs top-weight Charlus, who won a maiden hurdle in Ireland when trained by Willie Mullins, and Lunar Orbit, a Market Rasen winner when trained by Warren Greatrex. Now making his stable debut after wind surgery, Lunar Orbit beat the Skelton-trained Private Dancer that day, so he should know the strength of his runner's chances in this.