The Organist

The Organist was unlucky not to finish closer than she did in the two-and-a-half-mile mares’ handicap at Cheltenham last Thursday week.

Settled nicely at the rear of the field through the early stages of the race, she had to be niggled along a little by Leighton Aspell down the back straight but, moved towards the outside on the run down the hill, she travelled into her race nicely. She rounded the home turn on the outside of the field, and travelled nicely past Indian Stream, shaping as a real threat to the favourite Midnight Tour, who had made her ground on the far side. JP McManus’ mare probably wasn’t travelling quite as well as the favourite at that point, but was she was at least travelling almost as well until she got squeezed out of it on the run to the final flight in a concertina effect that squeezed her up against the stands rail. Aspell had to snatch up, and the mare did well to stay on her feet, so it was to her immense credit that she was able to keep on again from there to take fourth place. The winner won well, and it is probable that The Organist would not have beaten her, but she would definitely have finished closer than she did, she may have finished second.

The Oliver Sherwood-trained mare is finding her form again now. Winner of three of her first four hurdle races last season as a novice, including a listed mares’ novices’ hurdle at Doncaster last March, she probably would have rounded off her season by winning the listed mares’ novices’ at Cheltenham’s April meeting last year had she not fallen at the final flight. She didn’t win in the 2016/17 season, but she didn’t run too badly in the Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival on her last run before this one. She is one for one over three miles and, given that her dam also won over three miles, she will be interesting when she is stepped up to that type of trip again.

20^th April 2017