Sport

A rest for Becauseicouldntsee

LAST WEEK’S brave Cheltenham runner-up Becauseicouldntsee is likely to miss the Powers Irish Grand National due to his preference…

Fri Mar 26 2010 - 00:00

LAST WEEK’S brave Cheltenham runner-up Becauseicouldntsee is likely to miss the Powers Irish Grand National due to his preference for left-handed circuits.

Trainer Noel Glynn and jockey Nina Carberry had quite an experience in the National Hunt Chase as Becauseicouldntsee competed with just three shoes after the fourth could not be replaced at the start of the four-miler.

In the end, he was only run out of it by Poker De Sivola and Katie Walsh, prompting the bookmakers to make him second-favourite for the Fairyhouse Easter highlight.

Glynn said: “He has come out of it okay. It was a shame about the shoe, he’s a big horse and it was not the best thing to do.

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“If I had been able to get down to the start I think we would have been able to get it on. He might have been a bit geed-up, but he’s a very easy horse to deal with.”

Although the seven-year-old won a modest beginners’ chase by a distance at Fairyhouse in February, Glynn is not desperately keen to return there.

“He is a stone better going left-handed so we might well put him on hold this season and give him a couple of months off – although if something came up at Liverpool, we could still run him there,” added Glynn. “He would definitely be one for the National (Aintree) next year.”

Denis O’Regan is likely to be back aboard Black Apalachi for the gelding’s third attempt at the John Smith’s Aintree Grand National.

O’Regan has ridden the Dessie Hughes-trained gelding twice, when unseated at Becher’s Brook in last year’s National and when winning the Becher Chase in November 2008.

Black Apalachi fell at the second fence in the previous season’s National for Andrew McNamara.

Now 11, he was second to stablemate Vic Venturi on his most recent start in the Bobbyjo Chase, usually a notable Irish trial for Aintree.

Owner Gerard Burke said: “It’s up to Dessie, but as far as I know Denis O’Regan is riding him again. The horse seems in very good form.”

  • David Reynolds has been formally charged by the British Horseracing Authority with two breaches of the rules of racing in relation to his altercation with Kieren Fallon at Lingfield last Saturday.