Millers Bank primed for swift return in Colin Parker

Aintree casualty will try to make amends at Carlisle.

Millers Bank will take his chance in Sunday’s Colin Parker Memorial Intermediate Chase at Carlisle after unshipping Kielan Woods at the first fence in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree last weekend.

While it may not have been the start to a season that connections had anticipated, trainer Alex Hales feels last season’s Grade One-winning novice chaser could still develop into a King George VI Chase or even a Cheltenham Gold Cup contender.

The eight-year-old has not always been the easiest conveyance, unseating Harry Bannister twice last term.

After Christmas, he got his jumping together, finishing runner-up in the Pendil at Kempton and then impressively landed the Manifesto Novices’ Chase at Aintree, gaining his first top-level success.

Hales is keen to get a run into the eight-year-old after something of a false start to the new campaign.

“He is absolutely fine and I think he has to go to the Colin Parker. He jumped very well this morning,” Hales said on Wednesday.

“If we are happy with him in the next couple of days, I think we’ll go to Carlisle.”

Of his Old Roan Chase disappointment, he added: “You can look into it too much and beat yourself up about it. It is just racing.

“He’d had a really good prep and we hadn’t missed a beat – he’d been away to Warwick to school, and he had done everything we asked.

“For whatever reason it happened. We just had to put a line through it and move on.”

Millers Bank, who cruised to a 10-length victory in the Manifesto on his previous trip to Aintree, is being aimed at a return to the Merseyside course in April.

Hales added: “The whole aim was to run him in the Old Roan, then go to Huntingdon for the Peterborough Chase and then probably on to Kempton for the Silviniaco Conti, and then end up back at Aintree in April.

“That was how we envisaged the season should unfold. The whole aim was to get back to Aintree where, up until Sunday, he had such a good track record.”

Millers Bank was campaigned almost exclusively over two and a half miles last season, with his only try over an extended three miles ending with a distant fifth-place finish to Capodanno in the Punchestown Champion Novice Chase.

“There is still the matter of knowing whether he stays three miles – I think he does,” said Hales.

“So, the three-miler at Aintree hasn’t been ruled out, but my gut reaction at the moment is the two-and-a-half-miler (Marsh Chase).

“April is a long way away and there will be a lot of water under the bridge.”

Kielan Woods is keen not to rule out the King George
Kielan Woods is keen not to rule out the King George (David Davies/PA)

Asked if the Cheltenham Gold Cup would be a stretch too far, Hales said: “The heart says yes, the head says no.

“A Plus Tard and all of those are 170-rated horses. We are only rated 153 and that is a big gap to bridge. Maybe we can be persuaded!

“He may well be a spring horse and I would dearly love him to stay three miles.

“I know Kielan is very keen that we don’t rule out the King George, either. We have to get back on track first.”

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