Festival Fever!

Well, as I write this the waiting is nearly over.  One more day and then all hell is let loose in the Cotswolds as around 60,000 people descend upon the Cheltenham Festival each day.  The hard work is done, all of the horses have completed their build-up to the big day and I just want to get stuck in now.

We will have five runners on day one of the Festival with The Liquidator kicking us off in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.  If you take out his last run at Kempton in the Tolworth Hurdle, he would be one of the leading protagonists for this and could go well at a decent price.  He hasn’t had an ideal preparation but we have got him there – he has been pleasing me at home of late and fully deserves his place in the line-up.

Western Warhorse is our runner in the Arkle Chase and he has it to do on the bare form to land this although his latest success at Doncaster has been franked time and again.  Standing Ovation and The Package take in the Baylis and Harding handicap chase.  The Package makes his seasonal debut in the race that he has finished placed in twice before.  He is in good form but he has an absence of 364 days to overcome and his main objective this season is the Grand National at Aintree.

Our final runner of day one is Close House in the novices’ handicap chase – he has the ability to go well in a race of this nature although he would need things to drop his way.  Tom Scudamore will ride all of our runners tomorrow with the exception of Standing Ovation, who will be partnered by Conor O’Farrell who has been aboard for all four of his wins this term.

Below you will see the final episode in our series of interviews with broadcasting legend Mike Vince.  Here we talk about our hopes for the novice hurdles at the Festival including the likes of Red Sherlock who will contest the Neptune Hurdle on Wednesday and Kings Palace who will run in the Albert Barlett on Friday.

David Pipe talks to Mike Vince about his team of novice hurdlers ahead of the 2014 Cheltenham Festival.

Sadly Un Temps Pour Tout will not be joining them after he was found to be lame after exercise on Friday.  It is very disappointing for everyone concerned as I felt that he had a really good chance in his chosen engagement.  There will be other big days for him.

On a more upbeat note, we head to Cheltenham with the team in good form – Red Seventy was a ready winner at Wincanton on Thursday.  He showed a willing attitude when challenged in the straight having made most of the running – something that hadn’t always been evident during his flat career.  He looks sure to appreciate a quicker surface so hopefully there is further improvement in him yet.  I was very pleased to get a win on the board for his patient owner Terry Neill, who has long been a great supporter of the yard.

Consigliere (pictured right) once again showed that he is no back number despite his advancing years with a smooth victory in the handicap chase at Chepstow on Saturday under Mikey Ennis.  This was Mikey’s first victory since turning professional and he will have few easier.  The trouble is that Consigliere is so genuine, he rarely runs a bad race and as such he gets little respite from the handicapper.  He holds no secrets from them at the age of eleven, so hopefully they will be reasonable with their assessment of him.

One who is still on an upward curve though is Baltimore Rock (pictured below).  I was delighted that he was able to secure my third success in the Imperial Cup at Sandown on Saturday with a fluent success.  He travels powerfully through his races and his hurdling is improving all the time.  He has an engagement in the County Hurdle at Cheltenham on Friday and I would love to run him there but the chance of him creeping in at the bottom of the weights is remote to say the least.

Above: Baltimore Rock wins the Imperial Cup at Sandown on Saturday under Tom Scudamore

As usual, you can keep up to date with the remainder of our runners by checking Chester’s Chat daily – he will be at Cheltenham on all four days and will bring you all of the big news and stories.  Don’t forget, you can also keep in touch with us by following us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing.

The wait is nearly over…I hope you enjoy this year’s Cheltenham Festival!