Jonjo O’Neill is desperate for some better ground so he can send Shutthefrontdoor back to the track in preparation for the Grand National, in which the horse was fifth as favourite last year. The gelding will be one of two possible runners for O’Neill in the Aintree race, for which entries will close at noon on Tuesday.
“He’s in grand form,” O’Neill said of Shutthefrontdoor, who has not been seen in public for more than two months. “He ran well in a hurdle race at Liverpool in November but then the ground got really heavy and he wants good ground.
“When he gets pulled around on heavy, he’s not the easiest horse to keep right. I wanted to run him at Sandown this weekend but when I saw it was heavy, I thought I won’t even enter him.
“If you were a jockey, he’d be the sort of horse you’d look forward to riding in the National. He jumps really well.”
Stamina is the issue for Shutthefrontdoor, as his trainer readily concedes. Carrying AP McCoy in the jockey’s final National last year, the horse was in contention before tiring from the second-last.
“For me, he just didn’t get home,” O’Neill said. “But then he didn’t have a run beforehand. I wanted to get one into him but it didn’t work out.”
And so, in the interests of putting a sharper edge on Shutthefrontdoor before 9 April, O’Neill is hoping to give him “one or two” runs, ground permitting. But he also hopes the horse’s cause might be helped by a “more professional” display at Aintree this time, he having been rather free through the early stages last year.
O’Neill’s other National entry will be Holywell, although the trainer is feeling rather nonplussed about this one after a “very disappointing” display when pulled up at Doncaster on Saturday. “He didn’t go a yard, the little monkey. We’ll enter him and see how he goes between now and then.”
Holywell has an established pattern of moderate form in midwinter followed by much better efforts in the spring, usually at Cheltenham, and O’Neill said he would probably be entered in the Gold Cup, in which he was a game fourth last year. “But he’s not good enough, really.”
Smad Place, such an impressive winner at Cheltenham on Saturday, will not be tackling the Grand National, despite being quoted by a couple of firms. “His owners are not really Grand National people and I respect that,” said his trainer, Alan King, who added that the Gold Cup-bound grey “seems absolutely fine” after beating Many Clouds by 12 lengths in the Betbright Trial.
King’s only National entrant is likely to be Midnight Prayer, a winner over four miles at the 2014 Festival, when he was a novice. “The only thing is, he’d be borderline for making the cut at the bottom of the weights,” the trainer said. “He’ll run in a veterans’ chase at Exeter on the 14th and hopefully do well enough to go up a few pounds.”
Smad Place may be missing when the National entries are revealed on Wednesday but his fellow Gold Cup contender Don Poli will be on the list, being one of six horses that Willie Mullins expects to put in the race. The others are On His Own, Sir Des Champs, Ballycasey, Turban and Valseur Lido.
Pressed on which of those were more likely to turn up on the day, the champion Irish trainer said all six were “just entries at this stage”. In similar vein, he has five horses in Saturday’s big race, the Scilly Isles Novice Chase at Sandown, but has yet to begin the process of choosing which of them should actually travel.
