Nomine goes chasing, but Needham yard busy with pointers

Sine Nomine, the eight-year-old grey mare who won last season’s St James’s Place Festival Hunters’ Chase at Cheltenham, is to be campaigned in chases. Yet the Yorkshire yard run by Fiona Needham and her father Robin Tate will still have a useful team of horses to campaign on the point-to-point circuit when the season opens next week.

They include promising five-year-old Red Delta, one of two horses who Needham hopes to run at Alnwick before the New Year.

In the meantime she is preparing Sine Nomine for a Listed mares’ chase at the end of November and then the Rowland Meyrick Chase at Wetherby on Boxing Day. Needham, and her father who owns the mare, have not ruled out a return to hunter chasing if Plan A comes unstuck.

Sine Nomine was the impressive winner of a Wetherby hunters’ chase in February before beating Ireland’s top-rated hunter Its On The Line at Cheltenham, providing rider John Dawson with his first success in the famous race.

Explaining her decision, Needham said: “Given that Sine Nomine is a mare it would be important to get black type [by gaining a win or place in Listed or Grade races] for breeding. We will give this a go and see how she gets on, but she is qualified for both Foxhunters’ so we could still aim her that way if we felt it was right thing to do.

“We know point-to-point form, but will be a little out of our comfort zone in chases. We’ll soon see.”

Needham took out a permit during Covid and has kept it up to date since, yet Sine Nomine is the only one of seven in her yard who will be going under rules.

Red Delta, who was full of promise in his second season, won at Duncombe Park and Charm Park, but was then beaten twice in the spring. At Thorpe he finished third to Jeux D’Eau who went on to win the Lady Dudley Cup, while at Witton Castle he was second to the Tony Ross-trained Buy Some Time who has since won two handicap hurdles for trainer Mike Smith.

Red Delta (Nick Orpwood) who could head to Alnwick for his season’s debut (photo by Nina Edminson)

Needham said: “He was beaten twice, but he is still only five and he’s a big horse. He wasn’t disgraced. The plan is to start this season at Alnwick, have a couple of runs in point-to-points and then go hunter chasing. We hope to qualify him for Cheltenham’s intermediate final.”

Red Delta could be joined on the lorry heading to Alnwick by new recruit Great Notions, a fellow five-year-old who finished second in an Irish point-to-point on his latest start in the spring. Moonlight Flit, who won twice in the 2022/23 season is back after a year off, and Needham is also training a pair of unraced offspring by Shade Oak Stud stallion Telescope. They are four-year-old gelding Final Session – described with a hint of understatement as “quite a nice horse” – and a five-year-old unnamed mare. A three-year-old Shirocco gelding is also in training with a view to a run in the spring.

“Until they run this is a busy time of year,” said Needham. “You have to put in a lot of slow work to get them ready. When Dad suggested looking at a Doncaster catalogue for a recent sale I said ‘No!’.”