“He suffered no ill effects from his run at Cheltenham and we will definitely look at the Glenlivet Hurdle for him,” Twiston-Davies said. “It should suit him quite well as it is a front-runners’ track.”The plans for another Festival winner are more long term with Ferdy Murphy yesterday raising the mouth-watering prospect of a confrontation between his French Holly and Istabraq – the two most impressive winners at the Festival.Murphy had suggested he would seek to avoid the Champion Hurdler , but a change of heart has led the trainer to pencil in a meeting in the AIG Europe Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown next January.The pair, who have won 15 of their combined 16 starts over hurdles, already dominate betting on next year’s Champion Hurdle. “They spoke to Peter Scudamore and got totally the wrong end of the stick. He’s not been retired but I don’t want to rubbish it completely as there is a chance he might miss the National – but the vet hasn’t even seen him yet.”He has just got an enlarged joint and we have got to scan him tomorrow to see whether he will be able to run.”Young Hustler’s stable-companion Upgrade, winner of the Triumph Hurdle on Thursday, is a more certain runner at Aintree. No horse has captured the interest of the betting public in the lead up to the race and the bookmakers still bet 16-1 the field.Included on that price is Suny Bay, who is far from certain to make the line-up after sustaining cuts in the Gold Cup last weekReports yesterday suggested that the course-specialist Young Hustler would also be an absentee at Aintree, and might be retired, but these were denied vigorously by Nigel Twiston-Davies, the gelding’s trainer.”It is all nonsense and it makes you very angry,” Twiston-Davies said. He needs 14 horses to be withdrawn to get a run and may have to settle for a place in Friday’s Spring Mile Handicap, a consolation race for the first 24 eliminated from the Lincoln.While there is innovation about the first leg of the Spring Double, the second half of the performance, Saturday week’s Grand National, could do with an equal injection of excitement.
They were the most notable withdrawals at yesterday’s five-day acceptance stage for the race at which only 12 defected.The withdrawal of Tumbleweed Ridge, third last year, means that the weights for the remaining 69 acceptors will rise by 5lb, with Nigrasine now set to top the handicap on 9st 10lb for the pounds 50,000 contest.A safety limit of 24 for the one mile race threatens the participation of Refuse To Lose, cut in price after his second in Saturday’s Teletext Winter Derby at Lingfield. Audley Lumsden replaces him, while the lock Mark Cornwell (back) and Phil Vickery (shoulder) are both absent.Dave Sims – who makes his first League appearance since dislocating his shoulder last November – and Andy Deacon are in the starting line-up.IRELAND SQUAD: Backs: C Clarke (Terenure College), R Wallace (Saracens), D Hickie (St Mary’s College), M McCall (London Irish), K Maggs (Bristol), R Henderson (Wasps), D Humphreys (London Irish), E Elwood (Galwegians), C McGuinness (St Mary’s College), B O’Meara (Cork Constitution). Forwards: R Corrigan (Greystones), P Wallace (Saracens), N Popplewell (Newcastle), P Clohessy (Young Munster), K Wood (Harlequins), R Nesdale (Newcastle), P Johns (Saracens), M O’Kelly (London Irish), M Galwey (Shannon), E Miller (Leicester), D Corkery (Bristol), V Costello (St Mary’s College), A Ward (Ballynahinch).. STEVE HUISON, one of the stars of The Full Monty, will eschew the pleasures of the post-Oscars parties of Los Angeles to perform at another glittering occasion this week. It sounds as unlikely as the plot of the film, but the actor has been chosen to conduct the first public draw for stalls positions in Saturday’s Lincoln Handicap. Huison will be at Doncaster on Thursday to conduct the revolutionary draw which allows connections to choose a stall for their runner, in an order determined by ballot.
The new system will test trainers’ ability to determine which stall affords the best chance of success and they will be invited to walk the course beforehand to assist in their decision.
Two names that will not be emerging from the drum are the previous Lincoln winners Roving Minstrel and High Premium. O’Kelly will play alongside the captain, Nick Harvey, in the second row, with Gabriel Fulcher on the replacements’ bench.Niall Woods comes in at full-back for Conor O’Shea (cheek injury), while David Charles is on the left wing instead of Woods in the only two changes from the side which beat Wasps 38-19 last week.Gloucester will be without their England A wing, Brian Johnson, after he suffered concussion against Scotland A on Friday. IRELAND’S team to play England in the Five Nations’ Championship will be named later this week after the 23-man squad originally selected for Saturday’s match against Wales was selected again. The Shannon lock Mick Galwey, the only man left out of the final party for Saturday’s 30-21 defeat by Wales, was included along with the 22 on duty at Lansdowne Road.
Malcolm O’Kelly returns from international duty to boost London Irish’s efforts to climb away from the Allied Dunbar Premiership One relegation zone when they face Gloucester this evening. Cox: Alistair Potts (Trinity Hall) 8:8.OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Charlie Humphreys (Oriel) 12st 10lb, James Roycroft (Keble) 13:10, Jurgen Hecht (Keble) 14:11, Henrik Nilsson (Hertford) 14:2, Ed Coode (Keble) 14:10, Andrew Lindsay (Brasenose) 14:2, Paul Berger (Lincoln) 14:3, Nick Robinson (Lincoln) 13:6 Cox: Alex Greaney (St Edmund Hall) 8:7.. The winners are the ones who get the best out of what they have got and above all who race closest to their limit when it counts.”Boat Race crewsCAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY: Toby Wallace (Jesus) 15st, Brad Crombie (Peterhouse) 14:7, Alex Story (St Edmund’s) 16:1, Graham Smith (St Edmund’s) 14:12, Marc Weber (St Edmund’s) 13:8, Jonathan Bull (Emmanuel) 15:9, Stefan Forster (Peterhouse) 16:1, Paul Cunningham (Gonville and Caius) 13:6.
“Roughly: to double your speed you must cube your power, so clearly you are not going to push them up to 18 or 19 stone. It just won’t work.”When asked why even though his crew this year is 13lb a man lighter than Cambridge he is still picking the bigger men in his group, he says: “I guess as a coach you just can’t help yourself.”He points out that Harry Mahon, as coach to Greg Searle, the first British sculler to win a world medal in the single scull, worked hard to cut Searle’s weight without losing available strength.Asked to take a view on his crew’s apparent disadvantage in weight he says: “You learn that all sorts of people win races, and others who are good on the ergometer or the gym who don’t. “With a 96kg weight for the shell and 55kg of coxswain to pull along, there is bound to be an advantage to the bigger crew in an eight, but this is an artificial restriction and if the coxless boats were tailor- made for the crew at whatever weight, who knows how fast they would go.”Bowden explains that by pointing to the power-to-weight ratio as the key element in rowing. It is apparent that as oarsmen and women get bigger and the weight differential increases between the best lightweights – limited in the men to 11st – and the openweights, the differences in performance are decreasing.The world’s fastest time in the coxless four was held by a British lightweight crew from London Rowing Club until it was beaten by the narrowest of margins by the British heavyweight crew who won the World Championships last summer.Thor Neilsen, a coach who chairs the international technical commission, thinks that the introduction of lightweight divisions to the Olympic programme means the differences will disappear.Sean Bowden, coaching Oxford this year, says that, if the physical restrictions were removed from the equipment, there might be no need for lightweight divisions. “It’s fine when you’re going well at the start but it’s possible for boat movers to become boat stoppers,” he explained.The sport is also absorbing a weighty paradox. This time the Cambridge margin over Oxford is 13lb per man and if the Dark Blues win it will be the biggest disparity ever to have been overcome.Harry Mahon, the vastly experienced New Zealander who is coaching Cambridge alongside Robin Williams this year, is quick to point out that you have got to pull all the weight along.