- Monday, 03 February 2014 16:43
- Written by David Pipe
It was another decent week for the yard with a couple of winners; Vieux Lion Rouge at Wincanton and Poole Master at FFos Las taking our seasonal tally to 61. There were some mixed emotions too as I have some sad news of a great favourite to have passed through the Pond House regime down the years…
At Wincanton on Thursday Vieux Lion Rouge (pictured above) was bidding to follow-up his previous course success in the two mile novices’ hurdle under a penalty. Revelling in the heavy ground and jumping much more professionally on this occasion, he made short work of his opponents and won with any amount in hand as his prohibitive odds of 1/4 would suggest. He is certainly due a rise in class now and he has been given entries in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and Neptune Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, although he could run again before then.
I was pleased to see Poole Master return to form with a decisive victory in the handicap chase at Ffos Las on Saturday. He was a decent novice hurdler a couple of years ago although he had struggled in handicaps since switching his attention to chasing. Dropping to a more feasible mark and clearly better suited to the extremely testing ground at the Welsh track than his rivals, this race may not have taken as much winning as may first have appeared and I would like to take some credit for finding a good opportunity for him. Unfortunately he is due to go up 11lbs for that success which I thought was harsh…a revised mark of 139 will make life very difficult!
By and large the remainder of our runners from last week all ran well with Thomas Junior, Western Diva, Bygones Sovereign, Davy Doubt, Junior, Obistar and His Excellency all reaching the frame without quite getting their heads in front.
Looking ahead to this week we should have a few runners – Barton Stacey is another who performed with credit this afternoon (Monday) by finishing runner-up at Southwell, while tomorrow we will have a couple of runners at Market Rasen in the shape of Too Generous and Off The Wall. The remainder of the week is somewhat weather dependent with several meetings hanging in the balance owing to the continued rain. All we can do is enter our horses (as we have done at Huntingdon, Doncaster, Taunton, Kempton, Bangor and Newbury) and keep one eye on the skies in the hope that racing goes ahead. The feature race on Saturday is the Betfair Hurdle (formerly the Tote Gold Trophy) at Newbury so let’s hope they beat the weather. It is a prestigious and extremely competitive handicap that the stable has won down the years with the likes of Make A Stand and Copeland. At the latest confirmation stage the stable has two entries remaining; Dell’ Arca and Swing Bowler.
The entries for the novice hurdle events at the Cheltenham Festival have now closed and we look to have a strong squad for these races. In the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle we have Greatwood Hurdle winner Dell’ Arca, Pleasant Company, Legacy Gold, Vieux Lion Rouge, The Liquidator, Volt Face and Diamond Life. We have Red Sherlock, Kings Palace, The Liquidator, Un Temps Pour Tout, Vieux Lion Rouge, Legacy Gold and Pleasant Company in the Neptune, while in the Albert Bartlett we are represented by Kings Palace, Red Sherlock, Pleasant Company and Diamond Life. These are as good a bunch of novice hurdlers as I have had since the beginning of my tenure at Pond House and I am privileged and extremely excited to have them as a part of my Cheltenham team.
Another with a strong contingent heading for next month’s Festival is Willie Mullins and we had an esteemed visitor when we were joined by his son Patrick for a few days last week as he came over to ride out in the mornings with colleague David Thomas. It was fascinating talking with Patrick (pictured right, far right) about the similarities and differences in the routines between our respective stables’ and it was very clear that he has inherited his father’s nous – he is a very intelligent young man and a credit to his parents. He is quite handy with a table tennis bat too, as Chester alluded to last week, although I think the former English champion still maintained bragging rights. It was lovely to have Patrick and David over – it was all very friendly, although next month the battle lines will be drawn!
Finally, I was saddened to learn that another old Pond House favourite, Sweet Glow had passed away at the age of 26. During his career ‘Sweetie’ progressed from winning a juvenile claimer at Market Rasen to landing five races at Ascot (including the Long Walk Hurdle and the Ascot Stakes on the level at the Royal meeting) and a further three at Cheltenham. Although not overly big, he was brave and as tough as old boots. He was a gentleman to be associated with and he enjoyed a long, happy and active retirement from racing. Interstingly, during his long and fruitful racing career Sweet Glow was ridden by no less than seven champion jockeys...now there's a piece of trivia for you. They were: Peter Scudamore, Richard Dunwoody, A P McCoy, Charlie Swann (Ireland), Cash Asmussen (France), Michael Roberts (UK & South Africa) and Mick Kinane (Ireland).
As usual, you can keep up to date with all of the latest news and runners from Pond House by checking out Chester’s Daily or following us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing.
