Hot Weld Out – Will Murphy Find Another Gamble?
January 4th, 2008Long range ante-post punters will be reeling with the news that last year’s BetFred Gold Cup and Scottish Grand National winner Hot Weld has been withdrawn from the 2008 Grand National at Aintree.
Ferdy Murphy reported that his star stayer would be out for the season with a leg problem. However, the North Yorkshire trainer was hopeful that the horse would return to training for the 2008/09 season. At the time of his withdrawl Hot Weld was generally third favourite for the Grand National.
Now, though, punters are faced with a conundrum.
Murphy has become something of the punters friend in recent years with a host of winners at the big meetings and Joe’s Edge from his yard was backed down to joint favouritism for the National last year only to jump poorly. Nevertheless, it seems we can now be assured of a powerful Aintree challenge from this ambitious yard so which horse might the stable get behind now Hot Weld is out?
The stable has Joe’s Edge again and Leading Man outlined as possible candidates for the big race but both have had their problems with these fences and do not seem the most likely to receive the stable’s thumbs up. New Alco has also been mentioned by some for Aintree but his stamina may be in doubt and it may be that stable confidence will now fall behind the novice, Nine De Sivola.
Nine De Sivola is no ordinary novice though after finishing runner up in the Eider, Irish and Scottish Nationals. It is easy to see that the Murphy trump card could be moved to this young horse as stamina is his strong suit and recent National winners have had stamina in abundance.
Will Nine De Sivola make up into a genuine National contender? Will Joe’s Edge find his old form? Or does Ferdy Murphy have another horse lurking somewhere that could turn out to be the springer in the National market?
Let us know your thoughts.
