CALL It Magic ran a massive race in the Becher Chase. Ross O’Sullivan’s horse only finished fourth in the end, but that does not do justice to the performance that he put up.

The Indian River gelding was quickly into a lovely racing rhythm for Mark Enright. He had never raced at Aintree before, he had never raced over the Aintree fences before. Actually, he had never raced in Britain before. But he rose to the challenge that the fences presented, and horse and rider were superb over them.

He had it all to himself up front until they passed the winning post and started on another full circuit, at which point Missed Approach moved up on his inside and took him on, which probably wasn’t good news for either horse.

MISSED

Missed Approach had missed the kick and had missed the first fence. He was about eight lengths behind the second last horse as they landed over the first fence, but he made up the ground quite quickly, and he moved through to dispute the lead with Call It Magic as they crossed the Melling Road, with a full circuit of Aintree’s course to cover.

The pair of them got into a private duel for the lead, which took them clear of the main body of the field as they raced down the side of the track, over Becher’s Brook and over the Canal Turn. It was a duel that Call It Magic ultimately won. He surged to the front at the fourth last fence as Missed Approach wilted. However, both horses’ chance of winning were probably negatively affected.

Call It Magic travelled well in front for Mark Enright as they joined the racecourse proper again and rounded the home turn, at which stage he traded at just over 1/2 in-running. However, he tired from there, probably as a consequence of his duel for the lead and, in the end, he did well to keep on as well as he did to retain fourth place.

He raced off a British handicap rating of 135 on Saturday. He will need to go up a few pounds again if he is going to get into the Grand National in April, but it was interesting that his trainer mentioned the Topham Chase as a possible target. He ran well for a long way in the Irish Grand National last April before he tired, but two of the best runs of his career so far were at Ballinrobe and Galway last autumn, both races run over distances that were shot of three miles, both on soft or heavy ground.

Given how well he took to the fences on Saturday, you would love to see him have another go at them, and the two miles and five furlongs of the Topham Chase, over the big fences and ridden aggressively, ideally on soft ground, could be close to ideal for him.