Play back for third crack at Grand National
It seems a long time ago now that trainer Evan Williams enjoyed probably the biggest success of his career when State of Play landed the 2006 Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Newbury after a tussle with Juveigneur, writes Elliot Slater.
That benchmark victory was back in November 2006, since when State of Play has been a regular in many of the feature races on the National Hunt calendar, but despite consistently running respectably he has in fact visited the winners’ enclosure only once since, when landing the 2008 renewal of the Grade 2 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby. In amongst that series of defeats over the last two-and-a-half years however, have been two outstanding efforts in the John Smith’s Grand National, performances that augur well for another bold show at Aintree on April 9.
In 2009 the now 11-year-old Hernando gelding ran a tremendous race to finish fourth to Mon Mome, that after being badly hampered at Becher’s second time around by the fall of Black Apalachi, just as he was beginning to close on the leaders and look as though he might be a danger to all. Last year Paul Moloney’s regular mount was in the midst of the leading group when suddenly becoming outpaced at the fifth last. He lost valuable ground on the front-runners before getting his second wind and stayed-on strongly approaching the elbow, eventually coming through to take third place behind Don’t Push It. After that sort of performance, he’ll no doubt attract a few Grand National bets this year.
This season Williams has been careful not to go to the well too often with his near veteran campaigner, indeed, he’s not been to the well at all, keeping his horse under wraps until the publication of the Grand National weights in mid-February. Having been dropped 3lbs on BHA ratings since last year’s race, it’s hard to imagine that the handicapper will penalise State of Play so he should receive a good racing weight and is currently on offer at odds of between 25/1 and 33/1.
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