ASCOT FRIDAY

TIME flies in racing and it is all too easily forgotten that Kim Bailey has trained winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Grand National and the Champion Hurdle. He has another star in the making in Vinndication, who was backed down to 8/13 in the Grade 2 Noel Novices’ Chase and kept on stoutly to hold Jerrysback by a length and a half.

It was a four-runner race with strange betting patterns. Not a natural jumper, Lil Rockerfeller was understandably easy to back at 4/1 and finished a modest third while Count Meribel, twice a winner this term, was friendless at 7/1 and dropped out tamely.

After an early mistake, Vinndication jumped well and went on from the seventh. Jerrysback, a 50/1 winner for J.P. McManus at Bangor last time, chased him hard but was held close home as the winner took his unbeaten record to six.

“He’s bone idle and doesn’t show much at home but you don’t often win your first six,” Bailey observed. “If he goes to Cheltenham it will be for the RSA Chase because he’ll stay for ever and he certainly wants more than two and a half miles.”