Seahouses racehorse trainer hoping for Aintree success with Minella Study

Seahouses racehorse trainer Adam Nicol is hopeful that Minella Study can do him proud on the opening day of the Randox Grand National Festival at Aintree.

The four-year-old produced a fine run to finish third in last month’s Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and will bid to go two places better in the Grade 1 Boodles Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle on Thursday afternoon.

Minella Study was only beaten by a length-and-a-half having jumped the last with a narrow lead and he will re-oppose against two key runners from that race on Merseyside, in the form of Maestro Conti [second] and Selma De Vary [fourth], who represents the all-conquering Willie Mullins.

And his trainer feels that the faster conditions at Aintree should suit his charge. He said: “He’s good and he went down on Wednesday, as we didn’t want to take any chances with the traffic. The ground should suit and the track should suit, so hopefully he can turn up and put it up to them.

“It was a tremendous run at Cheltenham. It wasn’t until he landed after the last that I thought ‘he’s nicked a length here’ and that’s when I was excited, but I didn’t for one moment leading up to it think he was going to win. As quickly as I thought that though it changed!

“It’s a quick turnaround from such a competitive race, but we’re seeing lots of good signs at home. His weight was good within 2-3 days of running and we’ve had no mishaps. He’s got the best form in the country alongside Maestro Conti, so it’s certainly worth having a go and we wouldn’t be going if we weren’t happy with him. Hopefully with a smaller field, it’s a bit more relaxed and everyone gets a nice clear round.

“We’re not talking about hardened and seasoned handicappers who can recoup quickly, he’s a juvenile and you don’t know if they’re still recovering until you put them in that environment again. Everyone will be in the same position though.

“If you were being really picky, they got 10mm of rain at Cheltenham the night before and that might have just taken some of his speed. It’s not that he won’t handle it, but I think you’ll see the best of him on a better surface and hopefully he’s going to get that on Thursday. Everyone will fancy their chances so it’s great to be a part of it.”

Nicol famously works his horses on Bamburgh beach and he is enjoying a good year in his fifth full season as a trainer, with 19 winners over the jumps so far. His resources are slightly less than some of the bigger names he’s due to take on this week, but he feels he and his team are more than capable of holding their own on the big stage.

He added: “We can hold up to 26 and we’ve got that now. You’ve got to keep your feet on the ground and it’s very hard to come across good horses, but I like to think that if we can get a hold of horses that are capable of running of this level we can compete with and be just as good as those big yards.

“We’ve had Wise Eagle for a long time and he’s nine now, so it’s nice to fall onto this lad so soon. We’ve got some other nice horses in the background, but for a relatively small yard we don’t have as many bullets to fire. Willie [Mullins] put nine in the Triumph and only managed to put one in front of us, so we were delighted with our lad!”