Bury Parade

Bury Parade put up a really nice performance to win the two-mile-five-and-a-half-furlong handicap chase at Ascot on Saturday.

One of the worries about Paul Nicholls' horse beforehand concerned whether or not he would jump off, given that he refused to do so when we last saw him at Exeter. However, the trainer had fitted a hood, and had his assistant down at the start in order to ensure that there was no repeat of his Exeter antics, which there wasn't.

Settled just behind the three leaders and on the outside of the seven-runner field, four horses wide throughout, Bury Parade's jumping was good and consistent in the main. He made ground on the outside down the side of the track over the fourth last and third last, and he and his stable companion Grandioso went on together on the run to the second last fence. The pair of them jumped that fence in unison, but it always looked as if Noel Fehily on Bury Parade had more in reserve than Harry Derham had on his stable companion, and the Overbury gelding duly forged ahead between the final two fences, jumped the last well and stayed on powerfully to beat his stable companion by four lengths, with the pair of them clear of some useful handicappers.

This was just Bury Parade's sixth chase, and he still has the potential to improve further. The handicapper has raised him 9lb to a mark of 152 for this, but this was probably his best ever performance, racing in his first-time hood and over the longest trip over which he has ever raced. He has the capacity to go even higher, particularly if he is stepped up again in trip now.

He goes well on soft ground, and he seems to go particularly well at right-handed tracks - his record going right-handed reads 121231R1 - so he will be of particular interest now in a good three-mile handicap chase ideally at a right-handed track, and with at least a little ease in the ground. As such, the Racing Post Chase on 22nd February at Kempton, where he is one for one, would be an ideal next target. He is quirky, but he is talented, and he will be of interest wherever he goes next.

18th January 2014

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