Julius Des Pictons gives Jamie Snowden winner to remember

Jamie Snowden registered the first Grade One triumph of his training career with Julius Des Pictons taking advantage of a final-flight blunder from Mister Meggit to claim the Oddschecker Sefton Novices’ Hurdle in determined fashion at Aintree.

Jonjo and AJ O’Neill’s Mister Meggit was sent off the 7-2 second-favourite and was always travelling with supreme confidence in the hands of Jonjo O’Neill jr.

Nicky Henderson’s Califet En Vol led three from home, but O’Neill Jr was looking at the big screen for dangers as he cruised alongside the 3-1 favourite with the race in his grasp two out.

However, Mister Meggit got the last all wrong to open the door for the closers staying on behind, with Gavin Sheehan having a willing partner in Julius Des Pictons who galloped on strongly at odds of 14-1 to give Snowden one of his finest hours in the training ranks.

Mister Meggit eventually faded into fourth as Gary Hanmer’s 50-1 shot Minella Rescue came from way back through for second and Anthony Honeyball’s Crest Of Fortune third.

Snowden said: “It’s incredible and he is properly a nice horse.

“We’ve been campaigning him over two and two and a half miles but the better ground came along.

“Stamina was an unknown but he is bred for it and he stayed well – but the final 50 yards felt like a long way!

“We’ve been placed in plenty of Grade Ones before today and had Cheltenham Festival winners, but that’s our first Grade One so it’s very special. It’s a great team of guys to do it for as well, and it was great that Gav was on board.

“He’s certainly going to be a chaser. We bought him from France and he didn’t run in the first year, I think the French horses take a long time to come to themselves. We gave him a year off, he didn’t have an injury.

“He’ll certainly jump fences, whether that is not season or not there’s a lot of water to pass under the bridge before we need to decide.”

A delighted Hanmer said: “I’m delighted with that, super. He was a little bit unlucky last time when he should have won at Haydock and we came here thinking that if everything went well for us we may be in the top six and we thought odds of 100-1 were embarrassing, so the owners helped themselves to a little bit of that!

“He wants quick ground and with a little bit of luck and a wind behind us he could have won his last two and he probably wouldn’t have been 100-1, but it’s out in the open now and everybody knows all about him now.

“He’s got another three weeks as a novice so it’s very tempting to run him again. Sean (Bowen) said he had a hard race today as he ran right through the line, so we’ll have to see. If he’s OK we’ll run him again and if he isn’t he’ll have to wait and go in a handicap.

“He wants fast ground so he’s ready to go all summer and we have a little race mapped out for him in Galway at the festival.”