Aintree Festival 2023: Foxhunters’ Chase tips - Magic Saint carries high hopes for Nicholls team
The Foxhunters’ Chase can be something of a pinsticker’s minefield, so our friends at Tipstrr have run their numbers to provide us with their most popular selections from this wide-open renewal.
The Foxhunters' Chase is one of only two races, other than the showpiece race itself, to be run over the Grand National fences (the other being the Topham Chase).
It is over an appreciably shorter two-miles-five-furlongs distance, and last year 7/2 shot Latenightpass finished in front of 22 rivals, with 2021 winner Cousin Pascal back in fifth.
Both of those will line up again here with the former strongly fancied to go well again, but support in the Tipstrr community appears to lie with the more attractively-priced Magic Saint.
Trained by Paul Nicholls, whose daughter Olive will be at the reins, Magic Saint backed up a close-up second at Hereford in January with an 11-length romp against admittedly modest rivals at Wincanton last time out in March.
He will face sterner opposition here but in such a big field he holds decent each-way value at double-digit odds, especially with up to six places available with some bookmakers.
Those enhanced each-way terms open the door for a few handy larger-priced candidates, and one to catch the eye is one of Dan Skelton's runners, Bennys King, who has won both of his last two completed races.
He did unseat his rider in the race between those successes, but if jockey John Dawson can stay attached and get a clear round, then Bennys King has the quality to be in contention coming home.