THE JUMPING GAME

Evening Star, Issue 25716, 13 February 1946, Page 3

THE JUMPING GAME

LORD STALBRIDGE'S 'CHASERS GRAND NATIONAL PROSPECTS (Frem Our Correspondent, " Coriuthian.") (By Air Mail.) LONDON, January 31. Lord Stalbridge, who won the Grand National on the last occasion when it was run, in 1940, represents the type , of owner that is the backbone of the jumping game in this country. He is not really interested in the money side of the sport, for he never bets. But the horse—and particularly the steeplechaser—is his chief hobby in life. He buys young horses with the main object of some day winning the Grand National, and when the big prize falls into his lap, as it did six years ago, one cannot help feeling that it could not have gone to a better place. Lord Stalbridge not only owns jumpers—he trains them himself. And the fact that he was successful with Bogskar in 1940 shows that he not only knows how to pick them but how to prepare them for their formidable task over four and a-half miles of the stiffest country in the world. Such a stable has therefore to be considered seriously when one sits down to sift out the chances of the various candidates for the race, run on April 5. This year Lord Stalbridge has entered three horses— Bogskar, Red Rower, and Red April. Bogskar, now 13 years old, has not won since his Liverpool triumph. He has run twice this season and been second on each occasion. That is not to say he is out of the reckoning. His trainer-owner will naturally time his preparation with the view of having

the horse at his best for the big test. And it always has to be remembered that Aintree is a law unto itself. No fences on the park courses over which our steeplechasers are running during the remainder of the season can compare, either in height or width, with those on the Grand National course, and no other race makes such a call on the jumping ability as well as the stamina of the horses taking part in it. Red Rower is 12 years old. He won four 'chases in 1940, one in 1941, and one in 1942—a1l over two miles. Last season he won two races over three miles. In the current term he has run four times, winning once over two miles, finishing third once over the same distance, and second twice over

three miles. Red April is nine years old. He has won four races in a row this season, the last of them over three miles and a furlong, and, in my opinion, looks the best proposition of the three. But Lord Stalbridge said some weeks ago that he was inclined to let Red April have a go for the Cheltenham Gold Cup and wait another year for the National. There is no reason why, if all goes well with him, the ahorse should not take on both events, as other entrants for the National will certainly do, and if Red April were to fulfil his owner's hopes by winning the Gold Cup in exemplary manner I cannot conceive Lord Stalbridge refusing to allow him the chance of trying for the bigger prize as well.