Alan King confirmed after the Ascot Chase on Saturday that Edwardstone will bypass the Cheltenham Festival entirely. The Ryanair entry stays in the drawer. Instead, the 12-year-old will head to Aintree for the Melling Chase in April, a race King won back-to-back with Voy Por Ustedes in 2008 and 2009.
It’s a sensible move. Edwardstone ran a solid fourth in the Ascot Chase, chasing the pace and not quite getting home over an extended two and a half miles. King was characteristically honest afterwards: “He jumped super and it was a proper horse race. It was nice to see a ten, eleven and twelve year old fighting it out.”
The plan is to freshen him up and target the Melling, with the Celebration Chase at Sandown a possible backup. King specifically mentioned that “good ground over two and a half miles around Aintree would suit him.”
What the numbers say
We were curious about how realistic this is for a 12-year-old, so we went digging.
Since 2015, exactly one horse aged 12 or older has won a Grade 1 chase — Faugheen, in the Flogas Novice Chase at Leopardstown in February 2020. That’s it. One winner from hundreds of runners. There have been 113 Grade 1 chase runners aged 12 in that period, plus another 32 aged 13 and a handful older. The strike rate is essentially zero.
The Melling itself has been dominated by horses in their prime. Last year’s field averaged about 9 years old, with Jonbon (sent off 4/6) finishing alongside Protektorat and El Fabiolo. The oldest winner we could find in the recent Melling history is 10.
Edwardstone would need to buck a significant trend.
The case for going anyway
Rating doesn’t tell the whole story with this horse. He won the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2022, finished second in it twice more, and his recent form — a Grade 2 win at Kempton in January, then staying on for fourth in Grade 1 company at Ascot — shows he’s still competitive at a high level. His official rating of 152 has him in the mix, even if it’s slipped from his peak of 170+.
The track should help. Aintree’s left-handed, galloping layout with its big fences has historically suited bold jumpers, and Edwardstone has always been a slick, accurate leaper. His one previous Aintree run — fourth in the 2023 Melling — came on soft ground that didn’t suit.
King knows the track better than most. Voy Por Ustedes won the Melling twice off ratings of 162 and 168, proving that a trainer who understands the race can place a horse to perfection there.
Should punters take notice?
Honestly, the numbers make this a sentimental pick more than a data-driven one. A 12-year-old winning a Grade 1 chase would be a genuinely rare event — the kind of thing that gets replayed for years. If the ground came up good and the race fell right, you could construct a scenario where it happens. But the database says this almost never works out.
That said, there’s something about an old warrior at Aintree. If you’re watching for story rather than profit, Edwardstone at Aintree will be one of the most watchable runners of the spring.