Fancy that! Danish-bred Magnum to face first jumps test at Musselburgh

Anyone looking through the card at Musselburgh on Thursday may be surprised to see a horse carrying the DEN suffix, the abbreviation for horses bred in Denmark.

Lucinda Russell will send out Magnum, a five-year-old son of Appel Au Maitre, for his first jumps test in the 1m7½f maiden hurdle (1.00) and he will be ridden in the Class 5 contest by Stephen Mulqueen for owner Morten Buskop.

Magnum was previously trained in Denmark by Hanne Bechmann, for whom he won a three-year-old maiden, finished sixth in the Danish 2,000 Guineas and second in the Derby consolation race, all at Klampenborg. He was later trained by Soren Jensen before his switch to Russell.

"He could always go for the Swedish Champion Hurdle, which is a race Morten loves winning," said Russell.

"We just want to see how he takes to hurdling, that's the first thing. It has taken him a bit of time as the way they train them on the track over there is so different. Training them here up and down hills and around fields and schooling and such, it's taken him a little but of time but he seems to have got used to it.

"He'll probably need better ground then he'll get tomorrow but we've had him over here since October and we need to get on and run him and show him what it's all about."

Magnum was bred by Stutteri Hjortebo out of the winning French-bred mare Embattle, who has previously had a winner in Britain with Moulin Rouge, a son of Zambezi Sun who won a selling hurdle at Stratford for Brian Barr having previously raced in Denmark and Sweden.

Hjortebo, the largest and most successful stud in Scandinavia, is run by the husband-and-wife team of Morten and Iben Hjorth Buskop with its roster headed by the multiple Scandinavian champion racehorse and sire Appel Au Maitre.

His runners have included the 2016 Danish Derby winner Suspicious Mind and Appelina, winner of the prestigious Listed Lanwades Stud Stakes at Bro Park.

"The plan was for Magnum to be a Derby horse or stayer in Denmark," added Buskop. "But he was a bit immature, biggish and leggy, so I always thought he'd make a nice jumper.

"Let's see tomorrow - I'm not expecting him to win or anything like that, but hopefully he'll run a decent race and can jump around Musselburgh, and show that he can be a horse that we can have a lot of fun with in the future."

Fellow Scandinavian champion Giant Sandman, who hails from the family of Shergar, and the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes scorer Moohaajim complete the three-strong roster at Hjortebo.

Other Danish-bred runners to have have been trained in Britain include the Charlie Mann-trained King Brex, who won five jumps races including Class 3 handicaps at Sandown and Worcester.

Philip Hobbs, meanwhile, can claim to have trained two Danish-bred winners over jumps in Britain with Algenon, a dual chase winner at Newton Abbot, and Invictress, the 1998 Danish Oaks winner who won over hurdles at Worcester.

Embattle is the dam of nine winners including the Cagnes-sur-Mer Listed winner Storm River and is out of the winning Green Dancer mare Bathyale, the dam of 11 winners and three black-type performers in Battle Quest, Begueule and Battle On.

Russell, who famously trained One For Arthur to win the 2017 Aintree Grand National, is no stranger to the Scandinavian racing scene, with her father-in-law Michael Scudamore having trained the 2007 Swedish Grand National winner Neptune Joly for Buskop, while Russell also trained the 2009 runner-up Ormello.

Other winners for the Buskop-Russell axis are Bialco and Lucky Flight.

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