Ahoy Senor "in great form" for Old Roan return

The new Jump season steps up a gear at Aintree this Sunday with Halloween Family Day. The seven-race card at the home of the Randox Grand National is headlined by the £80,000 William Hill Old Roan Limited Handicap Chase over two and a half miles.

There are ten entries for the Grade Two contest, with sponsor William Hill making Imperial Saint the 9-4 market leader. The seven-year-old has won three of his four starts at Aintree, including at this fixture a year ago, and showed tremendous improvement throughout last season as he rose by 20lb in the handicap.

Last year’s contest was won by Minella Drama, who is a 7-1 chance with William Hill to become the first back-to-back winner since Monet’s Garden in 2009 and 2010 (the grey had also won previously in 2007).

Third behind Minella Drama in 2024 was Ahoy Senor. The now ten-year-old is a dual Grade One winner at Aintree, having taken the 2021 Sefton Novices’ Hurdle and the 2022 Mildmay Novices’ Chase. He is set to carry top-weight of 11st 12lb in Sunday’s contest.

After his third place finish a year ago, last season proved to be a frustrating one for Ahoy Senor and he was last seen out when fifth behind Gaelic Warrior in the Grade One Bowl Chase at the Randox Grand National Festival in April.  

Dual Randox Grand National-winning handler Lucinda Russell, who trains Ahoy Senor alongside Michael Scudamore in Scotland, reported: “It is definitely the plan to run Ahoy Senor in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree on Sunday to start off his season.

“He seems in great form. He is a three-miler and I don’t suppose he is getting any faster in his older age, but he ran such a great race in it last year and if we could emulate that again, it would be grand.

“He was running a mighty race in the Cheltenham Gold Cup (when falling at the 15th fence) last season and we’ll never know what would have happened.

“We will get Sunday out of the way with and see where we go from here I would imagine we’ll be looking at a similar programme to last season although I think we will miss the Betfair Chase at Haydock as he didn’t seem to like it around there.”