Tricky Trickster

Nigel Twiston-Davies endured a season to forget in 2008/2009 with the months of December through March yielding a paltry ten winners for what is normally one of the most powerful yards around. It says much for Tricky Trickster's constitution that he managed two wins and two seconds from his only runs during the Naunton drought, culminating in a handsome win in the National Hunt Chase at the Festival meeting where he became the first six year old to win since Homer Scott's Omerta twenty years before. The historic four-miler was receiving the last rites only a few years ago but has risen, Lazarus like, to its former pomp, the latest renewal one of the strongest in living memory. Aside from the Tricky Trickster, the race has already thrown up subsequent big race winners Niche Market (Powers Whiskey Irish Grand National) and Hennessy (Bet365 Gold Cup) and may even surpass the 2007 renewal in terms of the subsequent achievements of the contenders. That race produced six individual runners who have gone on to land valuable sponsored events, among them "national" winners Butler's Cabin (Irish), Miko De Beauchene (Welsh) and Ballytrim (Ulster) as well as future Festival heroes Garde Champetre (X-Country) and Character Building (Kim Muir) and a Racing Post Chase winner in Gungadu.

Like all Million In Mind horses, Tricky Trickster was sent to the HiT sales at the end of the season and will now race for Paul Nicholls in the purple and mauve colours of owner Chris Giles after fetching £320k. He looks the champion trainer's best chance of achieving the Grand National win he craves, but will surely find other valuable contests on the way and remains a horse of huge potential.