My Pension Expert Melling Chase
Grade 1, Aintree 15:30
£250,000 guaranteed,
5yo plus,
2m 3f 200y, Class 1   
Friday 10th April 2026

The dust had barely settled on the Cotswold amphitheatre when Heart Wood strode from it, not merely a winner but a statement, and now the road bends toward Merseyside. For Henry de Bromhead’s eight-year-old, the next act appears set for Aintree, where the Melling Chase waits as a natural sequel to a performance that still echoes.

At Cheltenham, beneath that searching March sky, Heart Wood did more than beat Jonbon; he dismantled him, stretching ten lengths clear in a manner that spoke of power held in reserve and gears yet unexplored. It was one of two Festival triumphs for the Robcour operation, whose colours flickered brightly across the week, and their racing manager Robbie Power now looks ahead with quiet certainty rather than noise.

“We were thrilled,” Power said of Heart Wood’s Cheltenham triumph. “It was a brilliant performance he put up.

“We thought he’d improve as he got older, but he’s definitely improved. It was a brilliant ride.

“We were hopeful going out and that he had a great chance, but I didn’t think he’d put in a performance like he did. It was a brilliant galloping and jumping performance.

“I won’t say I was disappointed when Fact To File came out, (but) we were a little bit more confident after that. We were hopeful he’d run well, but did I think he’d put in a performance as good as he did? Probably not, but I’m delighted.

“Ground-wise he is definitely versatile but the performance he put up at Cheltenham, he is probably a better horse on nicer ground.

“He has the option of Aintree. I’d probably say Aintree is where you’ll see him next – the two-and-a-half-mile Melling Chase, that will look the most likely target for him.”

At Aintree, familiarity can breed something stronger than comfort; it can become expectation. For Jonbon, the Liverpool fences have long provided a stage on which he moves with certainty, four straight seasons yielding Grade One rewards, the last two editions of the Melling Chase claimed with the assurance of a horse entirely at home in his surroundings.

Now ten, and still carrying both popularity and pressure in equal measure, he arrived at Cheltenham this time with a winter already etched into him, two brave Ascot victories carved out in the depths when the ground bites and races linger. In the clear light that follows, Nicky Henderson is left to weigh whether those exertions, admirable though they were, may have just dulled the edge required on the sport’s grandest stage.

Aintree, then, returns to the conversation not as an afterthought but as a natural refuge, a place where Jonbon’s record speaks louder than conjecture. Yet timing, as ever, remains the quiet arbiter.

“If anything I would be thinking about that (Aintree) with Jonbon as well, but we will know more in 10 days’ time,” he continued.

“Jonbon had a tough race at Ascot only four weeks before Cheltenham. He appeared to be a million per cent beforehand. Did he run a little bit flat? Possibly, but he still finished second and I just love that.

“JP (McManus) and I have chatted about it (Aintree) and in the run-up there was a moment we weren’t even going to go to Cheltenham.

“We thought he was just really well and bright in himself, which he was, but it would appear in hindsight that he might have been a little bit flat – and when I say that I do only mean a little bit, but in a race of that calibre that’s all you need to make a difference.

“Hindsight would say waiting for Aintree would have been sensible, but everything was saying he was tip-top. He probably ran like a horse who had a hard race at Ascot, but nobody can look inside their heads and they can’t talk, the poor boys – I wish they could.

“He tried his socks off and he doesn’t know how to run a bad race. However, being one degree off is all it takes.”

Joe Tizzard may yet roll the dice again with his Cheltenham team, with Aintree now firmly in view as the spring campaign gathers momentum.

Chief among them is JPR One, whose bold showing in the Ryanair Chase marked him down as a horse still capable of mixing it at the highest level. Sent to the front and allowed to stride on, he had several of his rivals under pressure a long way from home before the climb to the line blunted his effort, leaving him a creditable fourth.

Aintree’s flatter terrain, and the intermediate test of the Melling Chase, now beckon as a more suitable stage, with the possibility of a further outing at Punchestown also under consideration.

“It was a real solid run, he ran as well as we hoped he’d run because he got them all rattled a little bit,” said Tizzard.

“He will go to Aintree, two and a half (miles) around there should be fine for him, it was only when he was at the second-last that the hill took its toll. I’m looking forward to running him at Aintree.

“When he’s got his ground then he can flick his toe out and he jumped as well as I’ve ever seen him jump, so we were pleased with that run.

“Two and a half at Aintree and then we might even take him to Punchestown. He’s a nine-year-old who has been consistent all season and he loves this spring ground.”

There is a rhythm to his campaign now, a horse thriving on decent ground and racing with renewed zest, his connections keen to make the most of conditions that clearly play to his strengths.

My Pension Expert Melling Chase
£250,000 guaranteed, 5yo plus, 2m 3f 200y, Class 1
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Melling Chase - Previous Winners

2025 Jonbon
2024 Jonbon
2023 Pic D'Orhy
2022 Fakir D'Oudairies
2021 Fakir D'Oudairies
2020 ABANDONED due to Covid-19
2019 Min
2018 Politologue
2017 Fox Norton
2016 God's Own
2015 Don Cossack
2014 Boston Bob
2013 Sprinter Sacre Caroline Mould Nicky Henderson 07-11-10 Barry Geraghty 1/3F
2012 Finian’s Rainbow Michael Buckley Nicky Henderson 09-11-10 Barry Geraghty 13/8F
2011 Master Minded Clive Smith Paul Nicholls 08-11-10 Ruby Walsh 11/2