Hugo Palmer Good Friday runners blog: 'We're hoping for a searching early gallop for this horse'

Coral ambassador Hugo Palmer has one runner on Good Friday (April 3, 2026) and the Coral ambassador gives us the lowdown on it in his latest blog.

Hugo Palmer Good Friday runners schedule

• Nolton Cross - Newcastle - 4.10 race odds

Newcastle 4.10 – Nolton Cross

Having kept this horse busy on the all-weather in the last couple of months, the owners and I were keen to have a crack at a big prize on Finals day, there is excellent prize money on offer, and all too often we complain there isn’t enough prize money, so when it’s there, we’d be foolish not to go after some of it.

That said, we’re under no illusions that this mile and a quarter trip isn’t the optimum for this horse, ideally we’d be going 1 ½ miles with him, but as there isn’t a race over that trip here, we had the choice of stepping up in trip to two miles – which we’ve tried and it didn’t work – or dropping back to ten furlongs.

We’ve opted for the latter in the hope that with 16 runners and a big prize pot up for grabs, there will be a strong gallop early on and that will turn it into a testing mile and a quarter that brings his stamina into play. If that was the way it unfolded it could just be run to suit him, and in that case, he could pick up some of the big prize pot on offer.