50 Days To Go!

As I pen this week’s blog, I cannot believe there are now only 50 days until the Cheltenham Festival and the early closing entries have already started.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) sees the deadline for the Arkle Chase, NH Amateur Chase, RSA Chase and the Jewson Novices’ Chase so I am sure we will be making a few entries in some of those - I look forward to bringing you full details in next week’s column.

It was another good week for the stable with a steady flow of winners starting with Knight Of Noir at Exeter on Tuesday.  Partnered by champion jockey A P McCoy, our five year old gelding won the second division of the NH novices’ hurdle in cosy style.  He had taken a nasty tumble on his previous start at Wincanton but showed no ill effects from that to get the better of Cool George under more patient tactics this time.  A former winning point-to-pointer, he has only had three starts to date and will improve with experience and win plenty more races over timber, although chasing will eventually be his game.  Meanwhile, Prideofthecastle performed with credit under a penalty, just in behind in third place.

As I pen this week’s blog, I cannot believe there are now only 50 days until the Cheltenham Festival and the early closing entries have already started.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) sees the deadline for the Arkle Chase, NH Amateur Chase, RSA Chase and the Jewson Novices’ Chase so I am sure we will be making a few entries in some of those - I look forward to bringing you full details in next week’s column.

It was another good week for the stable with a steady flow of winners starting with Knight Of Noir at Exeter on Tuesday.  Partnered by champion jockey A P McCoy, our five year old gelding won the second division of the NH novices’ hurdle in cosy style.  He had taken a nasty tumble on his previous start at Wincanton but showed no ill effects from that to get the better of Cool George under more patient tactics this time.  A former winning point-to-pointer, he has only had three starts to date and will improve with experience and win plenty more races over timber, although chasing will eventually be his game.  Meanwhile, Prideofthecastle performed with credit under a penalty, just in behind in third place.

We took our tally for the season to 57 by landing both divisions of the National Hunt novices’ hurdle at Wincanton on Thursday courtesy of Baltimore Rock and Vieux Lion Rouge.  Baltimore Rock was workmanlike in disposing of Midnight Thunder by two lengths, the pair of them 26 lengths clear of the third.  Time may show that this was no mean performance – the runner-up was an expensive purchase and looks like a winner waiting to happen.  The ground at Wincanton was extremely testing and certainly softer than ideal for Baltimore Rock – he is another lightly raced individual who can go onto better things.

Vieux Lion Rouge had proved to be one of the best bumper horses around last season, winning his first three starts in National Hunt flat races before losing his unbeaten record at the Cheltenham Festival.  He had been slow to come to hand this time around and I was pleased to get him back on track.  This was a nice introduction for his hurdling debut and he was given a nice lead by the runner-up who made sure there was an honest gallop – he had been fantastic during schooling at home so I was a little surprised by a couple sloppy jumps during the race.  Even so, he won with plenty in hand and can take high rank among the novices’.

There were a number of other notable efforts including from the enigmatic Massannie (despite losing ground at the start at Plumpton), Tullyesker Hill and Junior at Exeter and Un Temps Pour Tout at Haydock on Saturday – all of whom reached the frame.

There had been much publicity prior to Un Temps Pour Tout’s British debut in Grade Two company at Haydock.  It would certainly have been nice to gain a win with him, but I still thought that he ran very well to finish runner-up to a very useful sort in Zamdy Man.   We will probably step him up in trip next time and I think you will see an even better horse then.  Interestingly, looking at the times of our race compared to the Champion Hurdle Trial on the same card thirty minutes later, you will notice that the novices’ completed the course 1.6 seconds faster than their more experienced counterparts.  Both Un Temps Pour Tout and Zamdy Man carried 11-11 while Melodic Rendezvous carried 11-8 to victory – I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that, but needless to say we are still looking forward to running Un Temps Pour Tout at the Festival in March.

Whilst I was at Haydock on Saturday I bumped into former England cricket stars Steve Harmison and Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff.  They were having a great day at the races and were trying to raise funds for Steve’s testimonial year.  It’s a shame they have retired from the game as England could certainly have done with a couple of players of their calibre during the recent Ashes Tour down under!  They are certainly tall lads (as you can see from the picture, right)…and my father was standing on tiptoes!

Looking to this week, we will have one runner tomorrow (Tuesday) at Leicester when Legacy Gold takes in the EBF mares’ novices’ hurdle.  She was the winner of three of her four starts in bumpers and put up a pleasing hurdling debut when successful at Uttoxeter last month.  The runner-up that day has subsequently finished close up in a Listed contest and so Legacy Gold looks to hold every chance under her penalty.

We have plenty of other entries up and down the country later in the week with engagements at Catterick, Southwell, Warwick, Huntingdon, Doncaster, Newbury, Uttoxeter, Fontwell, Sedgefield and Cheltenham.  The pick of these meetings is obviously at Cheltenham where we could be represented by exciting unbeaten novice hurdler Red Sherlock.  He could step up in grade in the Grade Two Neptune novices’ hurdle.  As usual Chester will give you all the latest news on runners from the yard through his daily column.

Finally, it was nice to welcome chairman of the British Horseracing Association Steve Harman to the yard this morning.  Steve was in the area and dropped in to have a chat to see what could be done to improve the sport of racing in this country.  It is nice to have someone who is looking to proactively do something to make our product better – I don’t think he was expecting to be given the leg-up aboard our equicisor when he arrived in his shirt and tie!