Alan King hopes Mille Chief will reign at Aintree
There may have been only five winners so far, and the stable jockey is still on the injured list, but Alan King can see light at the end of the tunnel.
The trainer whom Paul Nicholls had tipped as the most likely to challenge his current hegemony of the championship is still working his way back after a chastening experience last season. Reflecting on his travails in a recent interview King said: “I don’t think there was one main cause of what happened. The horses weren’t right early on but we thought they were needing a run. Wrongly, I got stuck in even harder, and that bottomed a lot of them. I’m conscious of it, now. We’ve slightly altered the routines, given them an easy day when they do nothing but trot round the estate.”
The almost routine rise of King’s yard was put into a steep reverse as his winners’ total fell from 136 to 76 and he slipped from third to seventh in the table. There was also the far more painful fall suffered by Robert Thornton, at Newton Abbot in the summer, that has put the jockey out until the new year at the earliest. But now that autumn is exerting its full grip and rain over Aintree is giving King ground for hope as he runs two of the horses on whom he will be pinning his revival.
Mille Chief, one of last season’s most promising juvenile hurdlers, runs in the toteplacepot Handicap Hurdle and Medermit, himself a classy hurdler, makes the transition to fences in the toteexacta Flexi Betting Novices' Chase.
Speaking on his website King said: “I’m very happy with both the horses and the change in the weather. We needed the rain and it’s time to get started, and, though ours might get a little tired on their first run back if, as seems likely, the ground gets quite soft, it is important that we get the ball rolling.”
Mille Chief could almost be taken as a definition of the frustration that King endured last season. He was already one of the leading contenders for the Triumph Hurdle before he had jumped a hurdle in public. When he did, Mille Chief appeared to be ready to win his race when he was brought down at second-last flight at Market Rasen. Two victories, at Kempton Park and Huntingdon, gave King every reason for hope which was then cruelly dashed less than a month before the Cheltenham Festival.
The gelding was found to be lame and was scratched two weeks before the Triumph. It may not have been a disaster but King is keen to make up for lost time. "Mille Chief's juvenile season was curtailed when he suffered a small fracture at the top of the cannon bone, but he has grown through the summer and is ready to return," he said. "Obviously, he will improve for the run but despite top weight, I feel he is fairly handicapped off a mark of 136 and I will be very disappointed if he does not go very close.
"Similarly, I am really looking forward to getting Medermit started over fences in the novice chase up there.”
Medermit had some good form over hurdles last season, finishing third to Khyber Kim in both the Greatwood and International Hurdles at Cheltenham and then beating champion hurdler Punjabi at Haydock, but King believes that this is the season where he will come into his own. “The rain has come just at the right time for him and though he was a classy hurdler, I have looked upon him more as a chaser. He schooled last year and he has done plenty more this autumn and pleased me when having a pop on Thursday morning,” King said.
"He has only three opponents, but you take nothing for granted at this game and though I see he is one of the favourites for the Arkle, Cheltenham in March seems a long way away just now.”
A little more light in the tunnel will suffice.
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