Horses To Follow » Santa's Son

08-Oct-2008

Two Graham Wylie/Howard Johnson horses with whom to finish. Santa’s Son ran a whole lot better than his finishing position suggests when he finished fifth behind Always Waining in a valuable handicap chase at Market Rasen a couple of weeks ago on his first run for Johnson since joining his team from John O’Shea after the Galway Plate.

Graham Wylie said in an interview beforehand that all of their horses were a couple of weeks away – despite their Indian Groom having won the juvenile hurdle earlier on the card – and Santa’s Son’s performance was consistent with that analysis. He made light of a fairly significant blunder down the far side and travelled best to the third last before lack of peak fitness seemed to tell, and he faded over the last two fences, but this was a highly encouraging run. He was a decent front-running two-and-a-half-mile handicap chaser for O’Shea in this country who had the pace to win a maiden over a mile and six furlongs at Tramore last summer. There could be a good handicap chase in him off his current UK mark of 138.

© The Irish Field, 8th October, 2008