Wayward Prince

Wayward Prince was mightily impressive in winning a three-mile novices' chase on his chasing bow at Huntingdon on Sunday. Always travelling comfortably, the Ian Williams-trained gelding made up ground at most of his fences, he was very quick through the air. He had a tough horse to get past in Aberdale who has always been well regarded by the O’Neill team and had previous chase experience and race fitness on his side. The two of them went quite hard at it from five fences out, with the injection of pace at this point quickly seeing the pair of them go clear of the rest and ensuring they had the race between them. Despite having to be niggled from some way out, it was clear on the long run to two out that Dougie Costello was confident he was getting the better of the argument and had enough to see off Aberdale. Aberdale was a tired horse jumping the second last and McCoy soon gave up the ghost having jumped that fence as Wayward Prince bounded into a clear lead and despite a very untidy jump at the last had enough in hand to win by nine lengths.

Aberdale showed with two comfortable wins over hurdles in the spring that he is a talented individual, and he had made a fairly pleasing chasing debut at Chepstow three weeks earlier behind two potentially high class chasing prospects. He really put it up to Wayward Prince here, but going at it from such a long way out found him out, while the winner was able to bound on up the run in. The others, including the 135-rated hurdler Quentin Collonges, just could not live with the front two when they started racing from five out.

Wayward Prince won the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at the Aintree Festival last April, staying on strongly up the home straight to win by six lengths. That was high class form on just his fourth hurdles start. This was an impressive start to his career over the larger obstacles, he is a very exciting recruit to chasing and could easily develop into a top class novice chaser this season. He is a leading contender for the RSA Chase even at this early stage, and best odds of 20/1 about him for that contest are interesting.

31st October 2010

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