'We could go to Cheltenham or Chepstow' - Outlaw Peter gets Paul Nicholls' winter team up and running
Paul Nicholls' first runner for a month was a winner as Outlaw Peter, part of the trainer's winter squad, made a successful chasing debut for the champion trainer in the 2m5f novice event.
Nicholls used the track as the starting point for his Gold Cup runner-up Bravemansgame over fences and Outlaw Peter, a four-time hurdles winner last season, made no mistake in the two-runner race at odds of 1-4.
“He jumps well,” Nicholls told Sky Sports Racing after Harry Cobden helped the seven-year-old get the better of Walk In Clover by three-quarters of a length..
“He’s not really the ideal front-runner so we had an impossible situation as Harry [Skelton] was just going to follow us.
“Harry Cobden said he had a little look and when he wanted to he picked up nicely. It’s our first runner of the season, in effect, so I'm delighted.
“He’s probably three weeks off being really ready but I felt if he had a little bit of experience today we could go to Cheltenham or Chepstow, something like that.”
Walk In Clover’s trainer Dan Skelton gained some compensation when Presenting Nelly followed up last week’s Worcester win in the 2m1f mares’ novice hurdle.
Welcome winner
Harriet Tucker enjoyed the biggest success of her career in the same Stewart Family silks sported by Cobden on Outlaw Peter and the conditional rider ended a 265-day wait for a winner in the 3m2f handicap chase.
Tucker, who won on the Nicholls-trained Pacha Du Polder at the 2018 Cheltenham Festival, helped Janeslittlevoice go one better than her course-and-distance second last time to give Ella Pickard her first winner of the season.
Mullins denied
Alvaniy, a first Newton Abbot runner for Willie Mullins, could manage only fourth in the 2m5½f novice hurdle. The Paul Byrne-owned Irish raider was sent off 1-3 but was beaten seven lengths by Wonderful Eagle, who made it two from two at the track and over hurdles for Philip Hobbs and Johnson White.
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