Ground conditions to dictate whether Wendigo runs at Aintree Jamie Snowden is keen to run Wendigo in the William Hill Old Roan Limited Handicap Chase at Aintree on Sunday if the ground is suitable. Although the two-and-a-half-mile trip is short of his best, Snowden sees it is a good opportunity to get a competitive race into him before his first major target of the season, the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury. It is a tried-and-tested route for Snowden, who ran Datsalrightgino in the Old Roan before his Newbury win two years ago. “As long as the ground is fine we are keen to go, obviously he wants it on the softer side of good,” said Snowden. “Hopefully this will be our prep run before the Coral Gold Cup. “He’s on a very competitive handicap mark, but with Sunday in mind obviously he would prefer further and he wants softer ground so this is very much his prep for Newbury. “It’s actually the same route we took with Datsalrightgino a couple of years ago.” After the dry spell Snowden, who trains in Lambourn, confirmed there is still no work being done on the grass gallops. He said: “We’re still not on the grass yet, we’re a long way off that but the artificial surfaces are brilliant down here so training is still very straightforward, we just haven’t been on the grass. “It holds the babies up as their education would be on the grass, and it’s nice to get the older horses on grass when you can as it brings another aspect to training, but you can get them fit without it.”
