Chief set to miss Aintree
David Pipe’s Well Chief is likely to bypass the Grand National meeting at Aintree next week with connections currently favouring a trip to either Punchestown or Sandown later next month.
The fragile 10-year-old returned from a near two-year absence in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham last time and ran a quite remarkable race to find only the brilliant Master Minded too strong.
Well Chief’s owner David Johnson reports him to have come out of the race in fine form but believes he could do with a little extra time to recuperate before returning to racecourse action.
“The ovation he got for coming second was like a winner at the Festival and he deserved all the applause he got,” Johnson told At The Races.
“It was a fantastic training performance by David to get him back having been off the racecourse for two years and we all know he has got legs of glass.
“His legs are fine but the Cheltenham race seems to have taken more out of him than we thought so I would say it is extremely unlikely he will run at Aintree.
“We have got either Punchestown or Sandown as options for the rest of the season but clearly it depends on the ground.”
