Tim Gredley sets sights on Chepstow's Finale test for Opec
Chepstow Racecourse in December 2022
Owner-breeder Tim Gredley is targeting Chepstow’s Finale Juvenile Hurdle with Opec after the three-year-old completed a hat-trick of victories over timber at Newbury.
The daughter of Sea The Moon was over 10 lengths clear on her debut over hurdles at Market Rasen when she made a mistake and fell two out, but she made amends for that mishap when scoring next time out at Wetherby after a 124-day break.
James Owen’s filly followed that up with an eight-length victory at Fakenham when sent off odds-on favourite and then secured the biggest victory of her career when making all to land the Listed “Bet In-Race” With Coral Fillies’ Juvenile Hurdle in Berkshire, comfortably winning by the same margin.
The Grade Two Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle at the end of December is now the likely target and Gredley said: “She’s amazing isn’t she? She’s Allmankind’s full sister, which is very exciting. Whether she gets up to that standard, I don’t know.
“I think the idea with her is that we might go to that Grade Two at Chepstow.
“I think we’ll wait until Tuesday when the marks come out to assess how we manoeuvre them around, but I think the nice thing with her is that she’s improving every time and I think she’ll handle the soft ground and the Finale might be the option.
“James and I might need to have another sit down and go through them all, but we’ll probably go to Chepstow with her”.
Stablemate and market leader Ambiente Amigo chased Opec home in third in that race after scoring at Newcastle on her hurdling debut and Gredley suggested a change of headgear had an impact on her performance.
He added: “I think she just got a bit keen. We took the hood off her as a bit of an experiment, obviously the first time we had it on, and she’s just got a bit keen and I think that showed at the end of the race, but we’ll go again with the hood on and see where we go from there.”
Liam Swagger is looking to maintain his 100 per cent record over hurdles in the Rhino Bet Encourages Safer Gambling Juvenile Hurdle at Market Rasen on Thursday.
The three-year-old was winless on the Flat but demonstrated a love of jumping when scoring at the Lincolnshire track before landing the Listed-class Wensleydale Juvenile Hurdle at Wetherby.
Gredley said: “He’s just a lovely horse isn’t he? I don’t think he won on the Flat but obviously enjoys the jumping. I think his biggest asset is his jumping. We’ll give him one more run and see where we are.
“We’re in a very fortunate position where we’ve got three or four in that position and then we can decide where we go from there.”
