Racing: Miinnehoma on trail of Gold

MARTIN PIPE's training wisdom has come some way since the days when he considered horses could not go out in the rain.

National Hunt racing's overpowering figure has developed, and then maintained, training mastery by pursuing fundamental tenets at the same time as regularly updating his techniques.

Pipe horses do shorter and sharper work on the gallops than most other animals and are never allowed to run at the racecourse unless ready. 'Running fat horses to attain fitness is wrong in my mind,' he says. 'It does more harm than good, putting strain on tendons and muscles when the horse is tiring.'

To see a Pipe representative labouring at the track then is a rare sight, but it was available this month when Miinnehoma struggled home a beaten favourite at Chepstow. The vibrations after that race suggested that Pipe thought his gelding, who has a long-term target in the Gold Cup, may have been below optimum condition.

This should not be the case today when Miinnehoma, a 14-1 chance for Cheltenham, lines up against a field including last year's Blue Riband winner, Cool Ground, in the SGB Handicap Chase at Ascot.

Pipe sees the nine-year-old as possessing the ideal National Hunt Identikit. 'He has a lot of things you look for in a top chaser,' Pipe says. 'He jumps accurately, stays well and the softer the ground the better he likes it.'

The trainer is also warm, if less emphatic about another of his runners today, Tyrone Bridge. 'He is a useful hurdler with the ability to win a decent race if everything goes right for him,' Pipe says.

That perfect day was at Newbury last month when Tyrone Bridge not only turned in his best effort for some time but also won the verdict in the stewards' room at the expense of Burgoyne. It is unlikely that all circumstances will fall into place again for the Long Walk Hurdle, especially as Burgoyne now has a weight advantage.

A French interest is provided here by Francois Doumen's True Brave, who has finished behind better horses than these. Formerly with Andre Fabre and a pacemaker for Toulon, last year's St Leger winner, the gelding once ran in a maiden won by Suave Dancer.

Baydon Star, one of four horses sent west from Jenny Pitman to David Nicholson, will be a short price to land the first televised race, even though he was some way behind one of his rivals, Flown, in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at the Festival this year.

Pitman's depleted stable has regained a powerful player, though, in the shape of Royal Athlete. The outstanding novice chaser of 1990 is back from injury and gallops in anger for the first time in 974 days in Nottingham's handicap hurdle.

It is some time too since a card as significant as Newcastle's was missing from the screens. The Northumberland Gold Cup Novices' Chase and the meeting between Sybillin and Dawson City will be enjoyed by only those at the racecourse as neither Channel 4 nor SIS will be in attendance.

Also missing will be Mark Dwyer, Sybillin's regular rider, who aggravated a hip injury in a fall at Kelso on Thursday. Chris Grant takes over and also partners the only runner at Gosforth Park owned by Peter Piller. He is to disperse his 20-strong string en bloc at the season's end following the death of his trainer, Arthur Stephenson. The Swiss owner is planning to buy back the elite, a band which almost certainly includes today's runner, Gale Again.