Harriet Graham’s Ladbrokes Trophy runner-up Aye Right is the headline act at Newcastle on Wednesday.
The Gosforth Park venue was scheduled to stage a National Hunt card, but the meeting was called off in the middle of last week as the track was unraceable with little prospect of improvement.
That fixture has been replaced with a ‘jumpers’ bumpers’ card and for a horse like Aye Right, who is trained in the Scottish Borders, it has come at just the right time.
He lines up in the QuinnBet Casino “Jumpers’ Bumper” National Hunt Flat Race over an extended two miles.
“We’ve obviously been stopped a bit by the weather over the last three or four weeks and we thought it would be a good, strong bit of work for him,” said Graham.
“Obviously it is probably a mile too short for him and there are no jumps which will be a disadvantage, but we’ve had horses there recently as our grass gallops are either saturated or frozen at the minute.
“We just think it’s a good opportunity to take him and it’s a big thanks to the British Horseracing Authority as originally his race wasn’t there and he didn’t qualify for any of the others.
“It will be a strange race, there’s all sorts of different types – Jimmy’s (Moffatt) horse (Golden Town) even ran in Kingman’s Greenham back in the day.
“We’re aiming him at the Sky Bet Chase at Doncaster, but the way the forecast is and because we won’t be running him on heavy ground, we’ve just got to take the opportunities when they are there.”
