Fair point! Although 1892 has also tipped it and he's doing pretty well.
The trainer seems fairly confident of a decent run:
TRAINER Dr Richard Newland believes Pineau De Re is hitting form at just the right time ahead of his quest for Cheltenham Festival glory.
The 12-year-old gelding, who won the Grand National for Claines-based Newland last April, goes in the Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle at Prestbury Park on Thursday.
Pineau De Re, who will again be ridden by Leighton Aspell, finished third in the Pertemps 12 months ago before triumphing at Aintree.
This is only his second outing of 2015 — the other being an eighth-place in a race at Exeter last month — but Newland reckons the signs are good for the 20-1 shot.
He said: “Pineau De Re ran a fantastic race last year, beaten third two short heads, but in hindsight he probably should have won the race.
“He missed the last hurdle but it was a superb run and the form turned out to be very good. This year, I expect him to run extremely well again.
“He was a bit disappointing before Christmas but he had lots of work afterwards and we also treated one or two joints which might have been causing him some discomfort.
“He ran a beautiful race at Exeter and he seems to have really turned a corner. I think he enjoys the spring with better ground and hopefully this is his time of year.
“He would be running in this race anyway to put him right for Aintree, but I think he has an each-way chance because he’s in such good form and the form of the race was very good last year.
“This is a target. Aintree is the biggest target clearly and if he runs in the first six we’d be delighted but I just have a sneaky feeling he could run even better than that because he is in such good form with himself.”
