Dream still very much alive with Aintree Grade One scorer Potters Potters Charm maintained his unbeaten record over timber by powering to a convincing victory in the William Hill Formby Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree. Having completed a hat-trick of wins over two and a half miles since put over obstacles, he coped admirably with a drop in distance and gave Nigel Twiston-Davies a first Grade One success since Bristol De Mai in the 2020 Betfair Chase. Sam Twiston-Davies was always in a prominent position on the five-year-old and readily saw off the challenge of early front-runner Roadlesstravelled and Celtic Dino, who had made a forward move at halfway. Miami Magic emerged as a threat down the home straight but even-money favourite Potters Charm always looked in control of proceedings and kept on strongly to prevail by two and a quarter lengths. Sam Twiston-Davies said: “You are always nervous going into a race like this, as it was his on paper to lose – thankfully, he hasn’t. “We thought that if we were going to go to Cheltenham with any kind of realistic chance, he needs to do things quicker, so we thought why not run him over a trip that is inadequate and make him do it almost the wrong way round. “The good thing was, he made some brilliant jumps down the back, I think I was awful at three out and two out, and then he was very clever at the last, so hopefully the experience won’t be lost on him and will help him in March. “He’s come a long way. He’s always been a good jumper, just a little bit big, and when you want to run horses in the festival races, they need to jump with pace and not make any fiddly little errors, or getting too high up in the air, so hopefully he’s ironed that out now and he’ll go there with a right chance. “The race changed quite a bit during the middle part, when Celtic Dino came on the outside and put a bit more pace in the race, so the only moment where I possibly got a little bit uncomfortable was down to the cross-hurdle, but what was good is that once we got straight, he was as I’d hoped.” Potters Charm, owned by the El Rincon syndicate which includes Sir Alex Ferguson, was cut from 14-1 to 8-1 for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham back over two and a half miles. Assistant trainer Willy Twiston-Davies said: “He’s done nothing wrong has he. To drop back to two and win like that is so impressive. The horse does the talking, doesn’t he. He’s obviously very, very good and it’s very exciting. “He’s always done nicely at home but actually his work is starting to improve. He only tends to do just enough in front but he’s a very talented horse. “We can go back up to two and a half now for the Festival and he won’t have another run. He’s proven enough, he’s a Grade One winner now, he’s won a Grade Two as well and has run well every time. “We hoped we had another The New One again and he looks like he is. To have a proper Grade One horse again puts us back in the lights.”
