Irish Delight!

  The Liquidator (after winning at Exeter)

The Liquidator was a fantastic winner of the Champion Bumper (Grade 1) at Punchestown last night for owner Roger Brookhouse.  Our gelding got a positive ride from Jane Mangan, a jockey who is certainly making a name for herself!  She was always fairly handy and asserted down the home straight.  It was a good prize of 52,000 Euros to the winner and our five year old looks like he could be a very useful novice hurdler next season.  Bought from Cheltenham sales earlier in season by his owner, he is the daughter of the mare Alikat who we used to train at Pond House.  He had shown good form since we had him, finishing runner up at the Cheltenham Bumper in November, he than won one at Exeter before finishing fourth at the Festival last month.  Obviously the withdrawal of the favourite Briar Hill helped but it was still a top class race and we are delighted with The Liquidator's performance.  It is brilliant for his owner Roger Brookhouse who is a big supporter of our yard and of racing in general.  We had a few drinks to celebrate last night and the horse is on his way home from Ireland for his summer holiday's this morning.

          Weather Babe Winning at Towcester

Royal Mile ran a decent third at Taunton over fences last night and surely he can pick up a similar race soon.  Conor O'Farrell actually won the race on Solitary Palm who landed and gamble for trainer Brian Forsey.  He was backed from 16/1 early down to 5/1 and the stewards held an inquiry into the improved performance.  The trainer said it was no surprise he won, the money tells you that!

Today there are five meetings, four on the flat at Beverley, Wolverhampton, Newcastle and Lingfield and and jumps card at Perth.  There is also the third day of the Punchestown Festival and I am very much looking forward to seeing Quevega take on Solwhit which should be very interesting.  David does not have any runners today.

Tom Scu hopes to return to riding this weekend.  He has had a week off since falling on Problema Tic in the Scottish National.  Wife Lottie said he his driving her mad at home!  So whilst he is recovering from that fall, she is recovering herself from the London Marathon.

I see amateur Mikey Ennis is turning professional after returning from America next week.  Mikey will ride Bon Caddo in the Maryland Hunt Cup for Grand National winning jockey Charlie Fenwick at the weekend.  Good luck to him and we shall keep you updated as to how he gets on.  Remember he won on 1980 winner Ben Nevis.

We just thuoght we'd share the photo of Weather Babe winning at Towcester on Tuesday evening.  It was taken by one of our staff members Gwenn who should perhaps take up photograpjhy full time as it is a great action shot!  Thanks Gwenn!

Laughing stock, cattle with a sense of humour!