Eider Handicap Chase – 2.43 Newcastle – Saturday 21st February

Looking ahead at some of the long-range entries, and we are very much in staying handicap chase territory over the next few weeks, with races like Haydock Park’s and Punchestown’s Grand National Trials, the Ladbrokes Trophy at Kempton Park, a few decent staying contests this weekend and the historic Eider Handicap Chase at Newcastle on Saturday 21^st February.

Many of these races will have been targeted by various connections and some will be using them for final Grand National preps etc, but what’s clear when you look at the entries for the Eider Handicap Chase, is that it is a mix of horses clearly aiming at that race and a whole host who hold many other entries, most notably at Haydock Park the weekend before.

One horse who looks to have been teed up for this valuable prize all season is Mark Walford’s Chasingouttheblues, who can be backed as a 2-star ** ante-post selection with WhichBookie at 16/1 each-way with Bet365 or William Hill. Gradually, more firms are pricing up the race, and I’d be happy to take anything in double figures.

There have been countless occasions when Chasingouttheblues has suggested that an extreme test of stamina is going to really suit, initially in some of the deepest staying handicap hurdles last season, and then the last twice over fences he has hit the line strongly over 3m and when the entry for the Eider was in, it confirmed my long-held hunch that this race can and will suit.

Chasingouttheblues was an extraordinary winner at Wetherby on penultimate start after somehow getting up in the shadows of the post after being hampered badly 4 out. Up until then, Chasingouttheblues’ chasing form was in lower grades, and the final piece of the jigsaw was whether he could be competitive in a deeper, higher class of race.

Well, last time at Doncaster in a good novice handicap chase run in an overall quicker time than the Great Yorkshire Chase earlier in the card, Chasingouttheblues came home quicker than anything as runner-up behind leading National Hunt Chase fancy Newton Tornado.

Doncaster is a track that suits front-runners, and so Chasingouttheblues ran with real credit, and again suggested he could probably have gone round again! That he is a novice who has built up a nice bit of experience and is therefore unexposed to the handicapper at this trip and in open handicaps, is an angle to be noted in races like this and means that 16/1 is too big a price about this potential improver.