Tom Scudamore: “It all depends which Vieux turns up!”

This looks a pretty hot novice chase, with Who Dares Wins setting a decent standard and looking well in here, but my horse has run well enough over fences in his three runs for Suzi Best, winning once, we’re joint second top rated here, and if [Alan] Kingy’s doesn’t fire here, we’ll hopefully be in a position to pick up the pieces.

Plumpton 14.40 – Rathlin Rose

I finish the weekend on another old favourite, Rathlin Rose in the Sussex National. He’s had a busy time of things, running in the Pardubice, the Cheltenham Cross-Country, and he ran well enough in the Coral Welsh National last week.

He does love his racing, on his best form he’d have an each-way chance here, although it is always a competitive race.

I’m looking forward to..

Dave [Pipe] has a lot of lovely young horses right now, and a horse I’m really looking forward to in 2020 and beyond is Israel Champ.

Having won two bumpers he’s not exactly a dark horse, but he wasn’t favourite for either race, and at Ascot last time he beat a well-regarded horse of Jonjo O’Neill’s [Soaring Glory].

He’s very much a horse for the future, and I’m sure the rest of this season will depend on the ground but given the right conditions we’d hope he was a Festival Bumper contender.

Tom