Menu Close

With Musselburgh staging another additional fixture on Thursday, it promises to be a busy week in Scotland.

 

The East Lothian venue also race the previous afternoon and all roads, as well as the ITV Racing cameras, head to Kelso for Premier Hurdle day on Saturday.

 

At £50,000, the Grade 2 contest is staged over ten flights of hurdles and is sponsored by William Hill as is the 2m 7f Listed Premier Chase just over 490 minutes later.

 

First run in 1990, the 2m 2f contest was awarded Grade 2 status in 2003.

 

Last year, the spoils went to Harry Whittington-trained Rouge Vif, who was third in Grade 1 company at Aintree a few weeks later and already a Grade 2 winner over fences this term.

 

The 2016 hero, Paul Nicholls-trained Le Prezien, landed the Grand Annual Chase two years later, while perhaps the best winner was Clever Cookie in 2014.

 

Trained by Peter Niven (the winning jockey on three occasions) and bred by his mother, Clever Cookie was a smart hurdler and competed at the highest level where he was a Group 2 winner.

 

One line of trivia involves BHA employee Jason Callaghan. The winning pilot aboard Leviticus in 1998, Jason is one for the official starters on duty on Saturday.

 

Tickets are going well for the Northern Lights Finals, which this year, will form part of the Go North Weekend at Musselburgh, Kelso and Carlisle. 

 

The Go North Weekend is three days of racing and behind-the-scenes access and is part of an initiative to boost jump racing in the North led by the BHA and Great British Racing and sponsored by the Racing Post.

 

On the days of the racing several trainers, including Lucinda Russell, Nick Alexander, Katie Scott, Iain Jardine, James Ewart and Sandy Thomson are opening their yards so all the more reason to get involved.

 

Don’t forget to check out our Twitter feed (@ScottishRacing) and www.scottishracing.co.uk for all the latest news.