Festival News

There were two further winners last week from a couple of exciting young prospects for the yard, although both are likely to swerve the Cheltenham Festival this year.  Edmund Kean, a former point-to-point winner in Ireland produced a very taking performance at Fakenham on Friday when winning the 2m4f National Hunt novices’ hurdle under Conor O’Farrell.  He looked to be struggling during the early stages as they went very fast up front, but as his stamina came into play he came back onto the bridle two out and ran out a comfortable six length winner.  He was very well suited by this step up in trip and will benefit from further still as his career progresses – he will certainly make a smashing chaser one day.

We have a terrific bunch of youngsters this year and Red Sherlock (pictured right) was a real talking horse following his facile debut bumper success at Towcester on bottomless ground last month.  While our son of Lady Cricket (and half brother to Swing Bowler) may not have been able to repeat the margin of victory, he did manage to keep his unbeaten record intact with a hard fought victory at Ascot on Saturday.  It was most definitely a stronger race with the likes of Listed course winner Captain Cutter in the line-up and I was pleased to see him battle on strongly to lead close home.  He did flash his tail on a few occasions in the straight but I am inclined to put this down to inexperience as he has shown no signs of temperament at home.

Although Red Sherlock was near the head of the Festival bumper betting, owing to the hard race he had here, we will resist the temptation to take him to Cheltenham this year and he is now done for the season.  Only a four year old, he is an exciting addition to the team at Pond House and will be given a holiday now to give him the time to strengthen and develop yet further.

Tomorrow has been circled in my diary for some time…not only do we fling open the doors of Pond House for our annual Cheltenham Festival Press Day (of which I will bring you some pictures tomorrow), but it is the day when the Cheltenham Festival handicap entries close.  I will certainly be burning the midnight oil with the formbook as I try to find the winners of the eleven handicaps (The JLT Handicap Chase, Pulteney Novices Handicap Chase, Cross Country Chase, Byrne Group Handicap Chase, Kim Muir, Grand Annual, Coral Cup, Fred Winter, Pertemps Hurdle, County Hurdle and of course The Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle).  Of course, any trainer would settle for just one winner at the Festival and I will be hoping that we can add to my tally of eight Cheltenham Festival successes.  To find out more about my entries you can visit Chester’s Daily Chat throughout the week.

David Pipe speaks about his Cheltenham Festival hopefuls from David Pipe on Vimeo.

As mentioned last week, on Thursday evening I will be appearing on the panel of the Exeter racecourse Cheltenham Festival preview where I will be joined by Philip Hobbs, Paul Nicholls, Andrew King, Tanya Stevenson and Paddy Power, so if you are interested in attending do get in touch with the racecourse.  On Friday I will be conducting a telephone interview for a similar event in Ireland.

Talking of Ireland, I couldn’t finish this week without adding my congratulations to Ana O’Brien as she became the latest member of this racing dynasty to taste success last week at Dundalk.  Ana, a sixteen year old student was successful aboard Fairylike in the 1m4f handicap on Friday night.  It was a real family affair as the winner was owned and bred by her mother Ann-Marie and trained by father Aidan – well done to all concerned… I am sure it is the first success of many.