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A meeting on Monday clarified plans for eight-year-old Famous Clermont, Britain’s most exciting new force on the hunter chase scene.

This article first appeared in the Racing Post on Friday 24th February.

He ran out an easy winner of the Walrus Hunters’ Chase at Haydock on Saturday 18th February, but only after some lessons over coloured poles, for an earlier victory at Wincanton had been pockmarked with minor errors. The jumping brush-up took place at the home of international showjumper Harriet Biddick, whose husband Will has been nothing if not brilliant when riding the horse in races.

Will Biddick – brilliant on Famous Clermont

Dorset trainer Chris Barber (pictured top), whose grandfather Richard trained four winners of Cheltenham’s Foxhunter, now Festival, Hunters’ Chase, plus one at Aintree, has shown skill and patience in transforming Famous Clermont into a horse who has become a standard bearer for point-to-pointing on the eastern side of the Irish Sea.

Famous Clermont winning at Buckfastleigh last season

That is to quietly overlook that the son of Maresca Sorrento was bred in France and his first four races were in Irish point-to-points with Co Wexford handler Donnchadh Doyle, but as a raw four-year-old, Famous Clermont was uncompetitive. Sent to Goffs UK’s Spring Sale in Doncaster he was secured by Barber for £5,000.

Barber said last week: “We are having a team meeting on Monday with Will and the owners. I’m keen on Aintree, because I think the flat track will suit him, but the owners are now thinking Cheltenham because they might never get another chance. Will was keen on Aintree, then two days ago he rang and said, ‘Maybe we ought to think about Cheltenham’. We will probably put in an entry.” (They have, and Famous Clermont is one of 35 entries for the Festival Hunters’ Chase).

All roads lead to Alnwick

If you have not yet subscribed to Martin Stevens’ daily Racing Post ‘Good Morning Bloodstock’, I recommend you do.

His look at all things breeding, Flat and Jump, arrives by email when tea is brewing at 7am and provides the perfect brain-engager at the start of the day. Stevens’ knowledge and research, scripted in a mates-down-the-pub way, is so engaging that a couple of times I’ve almost muttered, ‘more toast, Martin?’”

One delve last week considered the legacy of Hernando who, as damsire of last year’s Arc winner Alpinista, meant he also touched upon Kirsten Rausing’s ‘Al’ family. Within hours I was looking at the name of a four-year-old member, Alanine, who was third at Alnwick on Sunday. Like Alpinista, she was bred by Ms Rausing and traces her ancestry to foundation mare Alruccaba, but a point-to-point run suggests the similarity ends there.

Alanine was bought for 5,000gns at Tattersalls horses-in-training sale by Chris Dawson, who trains pointers as a side-line while running Co Durham’s Nunstainton Stud.