Terrific Thursday

      Dynaste - Winner of the Ryanair

What a day, what a night!  Dynaste was fantastic, coming back to form to win the Ryanair chase and £156,612.50.  It was great for his owners, the White family who have long been assccoiated with the yard dating back to the great Beau Ranger.  Ballynagour was also fantastic in winning the Byrne Group chase for owner Allan Stennett.  The was a fantastic training performance by David as the horse has his problems and is not the easiest to train.  In fact, he won that well that he probably won too far in the end off a mark of 140!  Please be kind Mr handicapper!  David says he connot remember a lot about last night or how he got home!  It was certainly a great celebration back at Pond House and down at the local pub.  It was great for jockey Tom Scu as well.  Before this week he had only ridden two festival winners and now he has had three at this one!  I think he is the most improved jockey riding at the moment and looks a class act.  Hopefully this will keep me in his Mrs' good books, mind you she does wear the strangest of clothes does Lottie!  Tom is joint top of the jockey's table with three wins alongside Ruby Walsh and Barry Geraghty while David is sharing the trainers leaderboard with Willie Mullins and Jonjo O'Neill who are also have great weeks.  Trouble is Willie Mullins has had a lot of placed horses so will be on top.  

Ballynagour - Winner of the Byrne Group Plate

Today there are four meetings, Cheltenham and Fakenham plus two flat cards at Lingfield and Wolverhampton.  David has three runners at Cheltenham, Kings Palace, Vieux Lion Rouge and His Excellency.  Obviously we would like three winners but after the week we have had so far we can't complain too much!  All three do have live chances however so we are keeping everything crossed.  Of course we would love to win the Martin Pipe conditional race but every race at the Festival is so hard to win.  I can't believe we are on day four of the Festival, what a day we have to look forward to with the feature Gold Cup.  Have a great day everyone.

Does anyone remember former jockey Johnny Williams, those older ones of you will.  He is the little welsh man and he was in our marquee yesterday and reminiscing about old times with MCP - the good old days!

Happy birthday to Bill Gredley who is 81 today.  He is a breeder of good flat horses and has had a few jumpers with MCP and David over the years.  It is also the birthday of jockey's agent Dave Roberts so many happy returns to him as well.

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