Danny Cook To Ride Madison

We are pleased to announce that Danny Cook is due to ride Madison du Berlais in the rescheduled King George VI Chase at Kempton this Saturday.  It will be Danny's first ride in the race, although he is no stranger to the big occasion having ridden a Cheltenham Festival winner for us last season aboard Great Endeavour in the Byrne Group Plate Handicap Chase.  Although yet to partner Madison in a race, Danny is familiar with the horse having ridden him plenty of times in his work at home and schooled him.  We are very proud of our strong team of in-house jockeys, and it is great that Madison's owners have given Danny the opportunity in this prestigious race - I am sure last year's runner-up will provide him with a great thrill.  Cook has been seen to good effect recently with wins aboard the stable's Spanish Cruise and Sona Sasta in the last ten days.

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I was delighted to see my team West Ham beat Birmingham 2-1 in the first leg of their Carling Cup semi-final match last night.  Despite playing with only ten men following Victor Obinna's sending off, West Ham were given plenty of assistance by Birmingham, with their keeper Ben Foster making a howler.  Obinna's red card was fully justified and the correct decision - in the end we were lucky and I am pleased to take a lead into the second leg at St Andrews.

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I was interested to see the success of Powerful Presence on the all-weather at Southwell yesterday afternoon.  The odds-on favourite absolutely bolted up in their seven furlong handicap and looks as though he is well up to winning a few more yet.  Admittedly they have only been low-grade affairs and he was running from a lowly mark of 56, but the interesting part though is that he cost previous connections 170,000 guineas as a yearling, yet made only 800 guineas at Doncaster last November - he is proving to be a real money-spinner and I just wonder what the original purchaser is thinking now?!  He could turn-out again quickly under another penalty and would certainly bear close inspection.

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It's television funny man and entertainer Des O'Connor's 70th birthday today.  Des has owned a few nice horses through the years - I always thought that he was related to Matt Chapman...neither one of them are funny and they are a similar colour!  I'm only joking Matt, you are (relatively) funny.  Anyway, many happy returns Des.