4:00 – Friends Don’t Ask 5/1
More than half of the runners in the field (6/11) are aged 10 or older, with a further 3 runners being 9-years-old.
While age isn’t necessarily in itself a barrier to victory, in this case we are dealing with a lot of well exposed (and out of form) veterans.
One that is far from exposed is the lightly raced 5-year-old, Friend’s Don’t Ask, who’s only had 2 starts over fences to date.
His trainer, Martin Smith, has said that he was always going to be a chaser so it was no surprise to see him switched to fences after just 4 starts over hurdles.
His debut over fences was an encouraging one, finishing 5th in a class 4 handicap at Southwell (3m). It very much looked like an education for FDA, who wasn’t ridden into many fences with Nick Scholfield lasking his mount to make his own mind up. He wandered around a bit on the approach to several obstacles but his jumping was good on the whole. Having looked outpaced, he stayed on well to finish 5th. The 4th won NTO while the, 3rd arrived in top form and the 2nd has placed twice since.
He showed the benefit of that experience LTO when finishing 3rd (albeit in a small field) at Fontwell (where he reposed Jen’s Boy, who finished 2nd at Southwell). He looked a tad uncomfortable around the tight bends of Fontwell but continually made up ground when they straightened up. He was on the tail of the leading duo on the final turn for home (traded at 2.14 in running (SP 15/2)) but looked a tad outpaced as they approached 3 out. Once again though, he stayed on nicely at the finish, looking to relish the uphill finish (which augurs well for his chances up the steep Sedgefield hill finish)
It’s also worth noting that he sustained a cut during that race, so we can mark that effort up. He has since been recovering from that wound, hence the 50 day absence.
Martin Smith takes just the one runner on the ~7 hour round trip to Sedgefield; his first ever runner at the track. When taking horses on a journey of 200+ miles, the trainer has a 25% strike rate (2 wins from 8, A/E 2.86, +20.83pts to a 1pt stake at BFSP)
Tom Scudamore, who has a 21% strike rate at the track, takes over in the saddle.
This represents a drop in class for FDA having competed against some decent rivals in class 4’s. As previously mentioned, this class 5 looks a weak affair and it looks an ideal opportunity for FDA to get his first win in this sphere. The extended 3m2f will suit and he won’t mind it if there’s any “soft” in the going description.
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