Sara Bradstock keeping fingers crossed Mr Vango gets Classic chance

Sara Bradstock is on her habitual weather watch with Mr Vango as she hopes for sufficient rain to enable her giant chaser to run in the William Hill Half A Mill Classic Handicap Chase at Warwick.

Having taken her pride and joy out of the Welsh National on the day of the race with the ground drying all the time, she has set her sights on this weekend’s three-mile-five-furlong £100,000 contest, for which the winner would earn a £500,000 bonus if going on to land the Randox Grand National.

With racing currently in the grip of a freeze, there is the prospect of milder temperatures towards the end of the week and anything up 20 millimetres of rain, sleet or snow could fall at Warwick on Friday.

“We’re frozen solid here so I hope a thaw is on the way,” said Bradstock.

“There is some snow or rain forecast for the end of the week so as long as it thaws, that will make it soft.

“We’re in the same old position. We have to have him in but we wouldn’t run him on anything quicker than the softer side of good to soft.

“At least with the Welsh National we had no regrets, when I walked down to the last it was nearing good to firm. That wasn’t Dai’s (Jones, clerk of the course) fault, the moisture just evaporated quickly.

“I felt sorry for the soft ground horses who did run. The point with our horse is he’s wonderful, but he’s 18 hands so there wasn’t any question of taking a risk. And also I don’t have 200 horses, I have four!

“It will be a similar thing, we’ll declare at 48 hours and see what rain we get.

“The next option is Haydock, either the Peter Marsh or the Grand National Trial, but I would like to get two runs in before Aintree. We’ll be ruled by the ground as ever.

“If we get to run this weekend and L’Homme Presse runs, that will really help us as we won’t have top-weight.”

Venetia Williams’ L’Homme Presse, Cheltenham Festival victor Myretown, Olly Murphy’s Resplendent Grey and Emma Lavelle’s previous winner My Silver Lining are others in the mix.

The last-named horse along with De Legislator and Gold Clermont could all be unable to run though, as should L’Homme Presse line up, they would fall foul of a British Horseracing Authority rule that comes into effect on Wednesday and prevents horses that are more than 15lb out of the handicap from running.

Also on the card is the Grade Two Hampton Novices’ Chase in which Murphy’s Wade Out is the highest-rated of nine entries.

Doyen Quest, Moon Rocket and Quebecois are others of note.