Sir Alex Ferguson’s horse Clan Des Obeaux out to help his trainer smash £3.6 million prize-money record at Aintree

SIR ALEX FERGUSON’S horse is being primed for a hat-trick of wins in the Betway Bowl at Aintree.

The five-time Grade 1 winner is on target for the big race on April 13 – as his champion trainer Paul Nicholls chases down his own prize-money record.

The Times

Clan Des Obeaux will return to the track at Aintree next month[/caption]

The 11-year-old, owned by Sir Alex, Ged Mason and Paul Barber, has won the Aintree race for the last two years but has been off the track since finishing second in the Punchestown Gold Cup last April.

He had a minor setback earlier this season which meant he was forced to miss the King George on Boxing Day, a race he has won twice.

But he has been gradually brought back to full-fitness by Nicholls, who is clear at the top of the trainers standings.

He put in a pleasing piece of work in Lambourn a couple of weeks ago and is firmly on target for the Grand National meeting.

He won at the fixture for the first time in 2021 – when Fergie famously quipped: “It’s always good to win on Merseyside!”

And if he wins the race again in three weeks’ time it could help Nicholls set a new record for prize-money earned during a season.

He has amassed £3,145,661 so far and is currently on course to smash the record of £3,646,511 that he set in 2008-09.

Nicholls said: “Clan Des Obeaux has been coming on beautifully. He has been doing a lot of work and the plan is to go straight to Aintree.

“I’m very pleased with him. It was touch and go at Christmas as to whether we’d carry on, but he’s done a lot of work and he’s been fine.

“He has improved enormously. We are not wrapping him in cotton wool – he has got to be ready.

“He’d have run at Newbury, but he skipped that and he will go to Wincanton one day on some good ground. It has been so fast.

“We will get a nice gallop into him and then go to Aintree.”

Clan Des Obeaux himself has banked more than £1 million in prize-money.

Nicholls added: “We are going to have a huge team at Aintree. It is just the way it works out with some of the horses we’ve got.

“And I love Aintree as much as I love Cheltenham – it is a great meeting.

“It is not ducking and diving from Cheltenham – if we have horses good enough, we’ll be there. It will be the same with Aintree.”

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