held up towards rear, mistake, not fluent 4th, behind from next
held up in touch, headway apr 7th, chased winner 9th until approaching 2 out, soon ridden and one-paced
held up, not fluent early, ridden 9th, soon struggling
prominent until ridden approaching 2 out, soon weakened
made all, jumped well , clear 5th, easily
held up in touch, mistake 4th, stayed on approaching last, never near leaders
tracked winner to 7th, ridden approaching 3 out, went 2nd again before next, no impression when mistake last
prominent, ridden 7th, weakened next
held up towards rear, headway approaching 5th, weakened 9th, behind when not fluent 3 out
soon behind, not jumped well, tailed off and pulled up before 4 out
The chase course is always a lot quicker than the hurdles track. An open event with Fiori, who has won under all codes, heading the field. Pat Haslam's gelding was disqualified after causing intentional interference at Perth last time and is on a retrieval mission here. While he is still open to improvement over fences, he looks up against it in this. Monkerhostin, the equal of Fiori over hurdles, has yet to convince over fences and has nothing in hand of Bonus Bridge on their running at Warwick. The latter, who was making his chasing debut that day, was returning from was from a lay off and is taken to come out the best of that pair. However, the TEAMtalk vote goes to Midland Flame, who has been something of an under-achiever to date. A failure on soft ground last time, he will be more at home on this faster surface and is taken to win what looks a decent novice chase for the track.
