Silver Birch Wins on Comeback

On the day his former stable-companion, Denman returned to the fray, Silver Birch made his first appearance in public since his Aintree Grand National heroics in 2007, taking part in the Ladies Open at the North Tipperary Foxhounds week-delayed fixture at Nenagh.

The Cleary Bust gelding put up a nice performance in the 7-runner affair under Nina Carberry. Racing in third or fourth, he jumped well, took over after the second last and stayed on well to account for Uasaka by three lengths with two lengths back to the third-placed, Petertheknot.

Backed from a bit of 4/5 into 4/6, the win of Silver Birch prompted his trainer, Gordon Elliott to say: "It is great, he done it well. The ground is very tacky and he had a good blow and he could go to Punchestown now in a couple of weeks or straight to Cheltenham for the Cross-Country race (2nd to Heads Onthe Ground in 2007). He had an injury and a leg is a leg so hopefully he'll be okay."

It is well documented that Silver Birch was given plenty of time after receiving a rap on the leg when being prepared for the 2007/08 campaign. Never described as being a bad injury, more of a warning to give the now twelve-year-old a spell on the sidelines (had a year off), he resumed his work in the autumn and a start-off in a point-to-point was always the plan (was third at Castletown-Geoghegan in 2006 and actually began his career with Con O'Keeffe, winning at Inch in 2002).

Silver Birch can be backed at 50/1 for this year's four and a half mile Aintree spectacular on April 4th. He is real big-race specialist having landed the Welsh Grand National and Becher Handicap Chase when with Paul Nicholls. He was purchased on behalf of his current owner, Brian Walsh, by Michael Donohoe of BBA Ireland at Doncaster in May 2006 for 20,000 guineas. (EM)