Ben Brookhouse’s Brechin Castle will be aiming to extend his unbeaten record in Friday’s Thames Materials Open National Hunt Flat Race at Ascot.
The five-year-old gelding was purchased for £165,000 after a point-to-point victory in February and has impressed in two bumper starts for new connections since. Winner of a Sedgefield contest in October, he stepped up to Listed class at Cheltenham during the November Meeting and recorded a comfortable two-and-a-quarter length success in the Turners Open National Hunt Flat Race.
"It's a lovely race to run your unbeaten bumper horse in, isn't it! It looks like every good bumper winner in the UK is turning up at Ascot," said Brookhouse.
"Our horse has come out of Cheltenham in very good form. It makes you question how good a bumper it was because of the manner he won it, but to be fair the runner-up Fire Flyer ran well to finish second over hurdles at Newbury earlier in the week, so that has sort of franked the form.
"We're there to be shot at, but we're also there to defend our unbeaten record so far and it will really put him on the map if he can win it.
"He's a horse who loves his racing and if there's any horse that I've ever worked with that's going to carry a 4lb penalty in a bumper of that quality, it's him, as he's got a diamond of a mentality.
"He's very good and I'd be disappointed for the horse if he got beat on Friday because he's such a gem. He thinks he's King Kong, but doesn't throw his weight around like he's King Kong."
It will be Brechin Castle's toughest task to date, with eight other contenders also remaining unbeaten after one or two outings. One such mare is Let It Rain, trained by Dan Skelton, who takes on tougher opposition after routing a Warwick field by eight lengths on her racecourse debut.
"That was a really, really good run at Warwick, but this is against the boys, and it will be very hard for her," said Skelton.
"She is at least getting 7lb, but it is going to be hard."
Ben Pauling's Dunskay caught the eye with a victory at Exeter and should also be firmly in the mix.
"He's a very nice horse and he doesn't really know how good he is, which is lovely," said Pauling.
"He's a laid back, big galloper who is going to be a very smart horse in time. He has a lot of natural ability which has come through early in his career and I think he'll improve a lot from his first run.
"He hadn't been away from home or anything before he went to Exeter and that was a deep race in itself.
"I think he deserves his chance. It's a very competitive race, there's no doubt about it, but I'd be a big fan of our lad and I'm looking forward to seeing how he gets on."
Brechin Castle currently heads the market at 5/2 with the Paul Nicholls-trained Captain Bellamy second-favourite at 7/2.
