Paper Tiger makes her debut in the Wetherby bumper, Saturday

Last weekend another of our seemingly endless line of unraced youngsters made a pleasing racecourse debut at Ayr. Gie It Laldy may have finished last of the 5 runners but, only beaten 14 lengths at the line, had run a very good race. Racing on testing conditions, he was prominent throughout and only gave way approaching the final furlong when passed by the 2nd and 3rd horses. He'll be suited by a sounder surface.

And so on to Wetherby on Saturday, where the ground is drying by the day and may even be riding good to soft by the off time of 3.57pm. 11 runners for this Mares Only National Hunt Flat race.

The pick of the opposition from those with previous bumper experience would appear to be Magheroarty Star. She showed no more than modest form when winning an Irish Point but improved upon that level when a promising 3rd in a Uttoxeter bumper a couple of weeks ago.
Runners from the McCain-Hughes combo are usually to the fore but the Irish Point form of Roc of Dundee is fairly moderate. Nevertheless, improvement having joined that high-flying yard wouldn't be the biggest surprise of the day.

A couple of pedigrees of the unraced mares catch the eye.
Wheres the Crumpet is a half-sister to an unbeaten bumper winner and her winning dam was rated OR83 on the level.
But the likely favourite hails from another all-conquering yard this season in Feargal O'Brien's Kalelula, who is a half-sister to 7 winners, mostly fairly useful to useful types. Her dam hails from a fine Aga Khan family and was a 12f winner on the flat. Solid credentials.

Craig Nichol is in the saddle for our Paper Tiger, running in the TD9 Racing colours. The mare hails from an excellent NH family and we've trained both of her half-sisters which have run - Paper Promise (2 bumper, 1 hurdle wins) and Paper Roses (a 6 time runner-up and OR115 rated hurdler).
Charlie Longsdon has also trained a couple of siblings from the family - the late Way Out West (a fairly useful bumper/hurdle/chase winner) and last week's impressive bumper winning debutant Everyonesgame.
The 6 year old Califet mare though hasn't been the easiest to train (hence a belated first appearance) and wouldn't be the biggest in stature so we've got fingers crossed for a nice enough introductory run.

Paper Tiger (Laura, nearside) working with Neigh Botha (Callum)