According To Dick
Mentioned here when he won at Sandown a week previously, According To Dick is worth another mention after stepping up again on that Sandown run by winning at Newbury last Friday. This was another race in which they didn't go a great pace early on, which, you have to think, wouldn't have suited this strapping son of Accordion, yet he showed a fine turn of foot over the last two flights to win impressively from Fiftyonefiftyone, with the useful and well-fancied Nicholls horse Michel Le Bon back in third.
Winner of a point-to-point at Loughbrickland last April, According To Dick has shown improved form in all four of his runs since joining Philip Hobbs. He is a really exciting staying novice chaser in the making, but he jumps hurdles well, and the turn of foot that he has shown in his last two races, both off a slow early pace, will stand to him over hurdles also. He will skip Cheltenham, but the Sefton Hurdle at Aintree could be the race for him now. While he has never been beyond the two and a half miles of Friday's contest, he did win that point-to-point, and he is out of a Bob Back mare who is a half-sister to a good staying hurdler, Here We Go, so he has every chance of staying the three-mile trip. Interestingly, last year's winner of Friday's race, Pettifour, went on to land the Sefton, staying on well to beat Gone To Lunch by a neck. He was a similar type to According To Dick, a lightly-raced six-year-old, bred to stay further than two and a half miles. According To Dick is hugely progressive and should be a major player at Aintree, where good ground would be in his favour.
27th February, 2009
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