A remarkable success story, Hello Bud has registered seven successes over fences in a little over fifteen months and this has seen the eleven year old gelding rise sixty pounds in the official ratings and culminated in a victory in a Scottish National.

The first three victories in 2008 were recorded under the care of David Wintle but the horse was transferred to Nigel Twiston-Davies for the 08/09 season and the Gloucestershire trainer managed to squeeze a further four victories from the son of Jurado and wasn’t afraid to travel to do so – recording victories at Kelso, Fontwell, Wincanton and finally that famous win at Ayr.

The victory in the Scottish National was the third win in the race for the yard after the wins in 1992 for Captain Dibble and 1994 for Earth Summit who famously went on to win at Aintree in 1998. The question for readers of our forum is can Hello Bud match his famous stablemate and go on and do the same double? Obviously given Hello Bud’s age (11 rising 12) he doesn’t have four years like Earth Summit to work up to it and if he is going to win the Grand National 2010 would look to be his best chance. He obviously has stamina in abundance and will probably be the first horse to be going into the race for some time with 3 wins at around 4 miles (31f at Hereford, 32f at Hexham and 33f at Ayr)

I did note that the last two of Hello Bud’s wins were achieved with the aid of a tongue tie and whilst that obviously helped any slight concerns the stable had about his breathing I always wonder if problems in that area have a tendency to get worse? It could be that Twiston-Davies managed to farm a rich vein of form from this horse and he may struggle to reproduce that form now that he finds himself so much further up the handicap?

What do our readers think? Is Hello Bud a horse you will be watching closely for the 2010 Grand National or do you think the 08/09 season was the pinnacle of his achievements?