Further Festival News

Another three winners last week means that the seasonal tally continues to tick along nicely and as I write we have enjoyed 77 winners this term. It wasn’t just a good week for us however; it was a monumental one for stable jockey Tom Scudamore who recorded his fastest one hundred winners at Newbury on Wednesday, beating his previous best by over two and a half months. With plenty of entries for the week ahead, including Trials day at Cheltenham this weekend, it is certainly a very exciting time of the year.

Our first winner of the week came at Newbury on Wednesday courtesy of ex-French import Brook owned by the Pipe Dreaming Ladies. Our four year old was the winner of a bumper back in his native land which comes as something of a surprise considering he is a fine, big stamp of a horse. He was bought as a chaser of the future, but even so I have always held him in high regard and was delighted to see him improve markedly from his first start at Chepstow in October. Previous winner Norse Legend seemed to set a fairly high standard on the face of it, but Brook had little trouble pulling clear once sent to the front at the penultimate flight of hurdles. I am sure there is further improvement in him and he is likely to have another run in the next week or two. Chester Barnes was in attendance at Newbury and I don’t think the former ping pong star knew what had hit him! The Pipe Dreaming Ladies consists of four of the most enthusiastic race goers you could ever hope to meet and they certainly kept him on his toes for the duration of the meeting. They have a very nice prospect on their hands and I hope they have plenty more reasons to celebrate.

Less than two hours later we were on the mark again with Smiles For Miles (pictured above) in the three mile handicap chase. Chasing the leaders throughout, he was given a fine ride by Tom Scudamore to produce him at the last and he stayed on in determined fashion to withhold the challenge of Russe Blanc by 3¼ lengths. This success was Scu’s 100th of the current campaign and with almost three months of the season remaining, he should beat his previous best total of 100 by some considerable margin – well done to him on a great achievement. As for Smiles For Miles, if you had told me at the beginning of the season that he would have won three chases this term I would have been very surprised. The switch to fences and the application of blinkers has seemed to transform him and he has earned a crack at some of the better staying handicaps now.

Our third and final winner of the week came at Taunton on Saturday when Virtuel d’Oudon (pictured right) landed the stayers’ handicap hurdle under conditional jockey Kieron Edgar. Following an aborted attempt at chasing with him, he was reverting to the smaller obstacles from a mark of 127 and he put up a most pleasing performance to win well. He was a good buy from the sales and has now scored four times since joining the Pond House team.

Last week I promised that I would bring you further news of our early closing Cheltenham Festival entries and pretty much as predicted we did not enter anything for the Champion Hurdle. We did however enter Un Temps Pour Tout in the World Hurdle and Swing Bowler in the OLBG Mares race. Tomorrow’s early closing races for the Festival are The Arkle Chase, the National Hunt Chase, RSA Chase (for which Kings Palace is the ante-post favourite) and JLT Novices’ Chase, not to mention the Grand National Trial at Haydock – again, I will bring you news of our entries for those races next week.

As previously reported, Un Temps Pour Tout remains on target to make his seasonal debut in the Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham on Trials Day. He is in good form at home, but is entitled to come on for his first start since May last year and as you would expect of a race of this nature, it is extremely competitive. Another who could be joining him at Cheltenham on Saturday is Dynaste who is entered in the Cotswold Chase. He has pleased me at home and has come out of his King George run very well. We will be keeping a close eye on the weather and hoping that the temperatures keep up ahead of the weekend’s action. Should he participate, the result will give us yet more information on which to base his Cheltenham Festival target.

Besides Cheltenham we also have entries this week at Leicester, Wetherby, Fakenham, Warwick , Doncaster, Huntingdon, Newbury, Uttoxeter and Fontwell although with the recent cold snap we are very much in the hands of the weather. For all the latest news on our runners from the yard, don’t forget to read Chester’s Daily Chat or follow us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing

Finally, we have been digging through the archives and we are pleased to bring you the final installment of our stable staff interviews.  Broadcaster Mike Vince caught up with James from our office in the summer and asked him for a horse to follow for the coming months and you can hear his thoughts by watching the video below.  Mike always kindly gives of his time and expertise to produce these video insights from the stable and his assistance is always greatly appreciated.  Indeed he will be joining us again at the beginning of March and you can look forward to more fresh video content including interviews with myself in the week running up to the Cheltenham Festival.

James Smith Horse To Follow 2015