Trainer Brian Ellison is Definitly seeking pointers at Wetherby

WETHERBY’S prestigious Charlie Hall Chase will mark the seasonal reappearance of steeplechasing stalwart Definitly Red.
Danny Cook and Definitly Red clear the last in the 2018 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby.Danny Cook and Definitly Red clear the last in the 2018 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby.
Danny Cook and Definitly Red clear the last in the 2018 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby.

Brian Ellison’s charge won the 2018 renewal under Danny Cook, becoming the first Yorkshire-trained winner since Peter Easterby’s Cybrandian in 1987.

Now 11, the lightly-raced chestnut’s performance will inform Malton-based Ellison, and owners Phil and Julie Martin, whether to campaign ‘Red’ with next year’s Cheltenham Festival or Grand National in mind.

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Fourth in last year’s Charlie Hall on unsuitably sticky ground, Definitly Red was then fourth at Aintree in the Becher Chase over the Grand National fences.

Connections celebrate Defintly Red's 2018 Charlie Hall Chase win.Connections celebrate Defintly Red's 2018 Charlie Hall Chase win.
Connections celebrate Defintly Red's 2018 Charlie Hall Chase win.

He was being trained for the 2020 National, winning a prep race at Kelso, before Covid-19, and the shutdown of racing, intervened.”

This year’s showpiece race at Wetherby takes place on October 31 and Ellison confirmed that this is the target – subject to conditions.

“He’s good. He’s definitely got his old spark and he – and all the horses – have been away for a gallop,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

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“What we do for the rest of the season, we will see how we go first in the Charlie Hall. It depends on that – but also the ground.

This is Waiting Patiently winning the 2018 Grade One Ascot Chase under Brian Hughes for Ruth Jefferson.This is Waiting Patiently winning the 2018 Grade One Ascot Chase under Brian Hughes for Ruth Jefferson.
This is Waiting Patiently winning the 2018 Grade One Ascot Chase under Brian Hughes for Ruth Jefferson.

“If it’s that heavy sticky ground, he doesn’t like it. He hates it, as you saw last year at Wetherby. The year he won the race, it was good jumping ground. He’s a lovely moving animal just not suited to any tackiness.”

Ellison’s fellow Malton trainer Ruth Jefferson reports no definitive plans for her Grade One-winning steeplechaser Waiting Patiently.

The injury-prone horse’s sole run last season came when finishing third in Sandown’s Tingle Creek Chase – he was closing down the winner Defi Du Seiul, and runner-up Un De Sceaux, with every stride under champion jockey Brian Hughes.

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But the nine-year-old, owned by Richard Collins, is now “in full training”, reports Jefferson. “He’s just starting to do fast pieces of work,” she added. “I am keeping all options open. He’s fit and he will be ready when he runs.”

The issue is a lack of suitable races for such highly-rated horses over either two miles – or two and a half.

York rounded off its 2020 Flat campaign with David O’Meara’s Gulliver winning a second successive Coral Sprint Trophy.

The six-year-old gelding ran a commanding race under Martin Harley and victory confirmed Upper Helmsley-based O’Meara as the track’s leading trainer for a second successive year.

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“He’s a wonderful horse,” said O’Meara of Gulliver, who carried 9st 7lb to victory from a 2lb higher mark than last season.

“He won this race last year and he was a couple of pounds higher this year so we weren’t sure if he was maybe a few pounds too high to win it again, but he’s a fantastic horse and he seems to like it here.

“I don’t know what we’ll do with him next, we’ll see, he might go abroad through the winter.”

O’Meara’s No 1 jockey Danny Tudhope won the leading rider award on a day that saw course specialist Dakota Gold land the first Group Three race of his career with a pillar-to-post success in the rearranged Bengough Stakes.

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Saved over from the previous weekend’s waterlogged Ascot card, Michael Dods’s consistent sprinter never saw another rival in registering a fifth win on Knavesmire under Connor Beasley, who gets on so well with this horse.

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