A Fantastic Weekend

Another good week for the stable was bookended by wins at Plumpton on Monday and an across the card treble at Ascot and Haydock on Saturday. A total of five winners during the course of the week took our seasonal tally to 94 and now with only three weeks to go until the start of the Cheltenham Festival, we are putting the finishing touches to the horses’ preparations and just keeping everything ticking over and all our fingers and toes firmly crossed!

There was a pleasant start to the beginning of last week when Chic Theatre ran out a ready winner of the bumper at Plumpton at odds of 14/1. Following a couple of beaten favourites on the card, hopes were diminishing for a winner on the day. Although hopeful of a decent show from our five year old son of Kings Theatre, I was cautious as I had expected much better on his racecourse debut at Newbury the previous month. Settling much better on this occasion, he had clearly benefitted from his previous experience as he pulled ten lengths clear under Tom Scudamore - hopefully he can continue to progress from here.

Our next racecourse representative did not come until Friday when the very promising Bidourey extended his unbeaten record to five with a bloodless win in the novices’ hurdle at Sandown. I’m not sure what he achieved on this occasion with the second favourite patently failing to give his running. Without wishing to appear arrogant, I think he has been well placed to run up a sequence like that although he is clearly a horse of enormous potential. As a chaser of the future, his success has been something of a bonus – Cheltenham may come a bit soon this time around although I will talk with the owners before deciding where we go next.

The good form of the stable continued in some style when we recorded a hat-trick of successes with the victories of Ainsi Fideles and Unique de Cotte at Ascot and Bygones Sovereign. Ainsi Fideles has proved to be a revelation since the application of blinkers and the switch to fences and he continued his meteoric rise through the ranks with success in the prestigious Grade 2 Reynoldstown novices’ chase on Saturday. If back in the summer you had told me that he would have won six times and earned a handicap figure in the 150’s, I would have been very surprised. Although the favourite Virak failed to give his running, it should not detract from Ainsi Fideles who proved he handled the longer trip and rain-softened ground well. He is not entered at Cheltenham as Aintree looks like a track that will suit him better, while he will not be inconvenienced by the likely quicker ground. He is also a possible for the Punchestown Festival.

Unique de Cotte (pictured above)was another to produce an impressive performance at Ascot on Saturday when making all the running in the 2m3½f handicap hurdle under a well-judged ride from Tom Scudamore. Although his jumping wasn’t entirely convincing, with his stamina assured he kept finding extra and was a ready winner. He will need a rise in the weights to get into one of the handicaps at Cheltenham (where he was already a winner in November) – the obvious race would be the Martin Pipe conditional jockeys’ race, although he will receive other entries and it could be a case of running wherever he can get in.

Our final winner of the week came at Haydock and the Michael Heard/Bygones Sovereign partnership has to be one of the Cinderella stories of the season. Bygones (pictured right) has always been a capable performer (narrow wins from handicap marks of 110, 111 and 112 over a period of 18 months suggesting that he was exposed at that sort of level), although I am totally at a loss to explain how he has suddenly routed two decent fields from 117 and 130! Conditional jockey Michael Heard has certainly struck up a real affiliation with him and in fairness he has probably given him three of the best rides you will see this season (sorry AP!) – you may recall a never-say-die effort at Chepstow to get him up in the shadow of the post before producing a finely judged piece of front-running next time at Newbury. The opposing jockeys were caught napping that day, so you can imagine my astonishment when they did exactly the same thing on Saturday! With the exception of James Reveley the remaining jockeys all gifted him a lead that he was never to relinquish and you have to take your hat off to the enterprise of Michael Heard for that. He will head to Cheltenham now for the final of the Pertemps series, although another rise in the weights and the ultra-competitive nature of the Festival means that it will be much harder to repeat the dose again.

Talking of handicaps, there are no fewer than eleven of the Cheltenham Festival handicaps closing tomorrow (Tuesday) so I will be burning the midnight oil as I put the finishing touches to entries. I am sure Chester will bring you news of some of those throughout the course of the week in his daily column.

Meanwhile, there is the small matter of the announcement of the Grand National weights tomorrow in the Royal Opera House, London. Sadly I am unable to attend but my father will be there for the luncheon and you can get the latest news on the top weights, Pond House entries and my reaction to senior handicapper Phil Smith’s assessment by checking back here from midday tomorrow.

Looking ahead to this week Bella and Dell’ Arca run at Taunton tomorrow. Dell’ Arca competes in the handicap hurdle and it represents something of a drop in class having finished a narrow runner-up at Cheltenham last time. He has the burden of top weight but he has earned it and it should not stop him from putting up a bold bid.

We are sure to have a few runners in the final Pertemps qualifier at Chepstow on Saturday (where we currently have nine engaged) as well as at Newcastle where the Eider Chase is the feature contest. Recent Exeter winner Soll and Broadway Buffalo (who was far from a spent force when parting company with Conor O’Farrell at Haydock on Saturday) are both possible runners at this stage.

Finally I would just like to wish former West Indian pace man Michael Holding a very happy birthday. Michael, known as a keen racing man had very little to celebrate on Sunday after the West Indies were beaten by Ireland in their Cricket World Cup match. He could probably still get into that side now!

As usual, for all the other news from the stable keep in touch with Chester’s Daily Chat or follow us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing

UPDATE...

Today sees the announcement of the weights for the 2015 Crabbies Grand National at Aintree and there are no great surprises among the topweights.  As usual senior handicapper Phil Smith has used his discretion to compress the weights in a bid to attract some of the higher class horses to participate, the other benefit to this is that it should enable more of the field to compete from 'within the handicap'.  This compression only tends to affect those towards the head of the weights and principally benefits both Carlingford Lough and Many Clouds this year as they are theoretically well treated being 5lbs below their official handicap marks.  Sam Winner, Boston Bob, Unioniste are others to have been let in comparatively lightly, while Gordon Elliott may be a little disappointed to find that his Roi du Mee has been allotted 3lbs more than in normal handicaps.

Of the Pond House horses they are all on their proper marks.  Poole Master put up a fantastic performance when winning the Grand Sefton over the National fences in December.  He has to finish placed in the first four of a three mile chase in order to qualify so we are running out of time for him.  Soll, a good winner of a valuable veteran's chase at Exeter on his first start for the stable has been given 10-2 - he was seventh behind Aurora's Encore in the 2013 National.  He is in the Eider Chase at Newcastle on Saturday and a decision on his participation in that will be decided later in the week.  Broadway Buffalo fell when creeping into contention in the National Trial at Haydock on Saturday and is another entered in the Eider on Saturday - historic figures show that a mark of 137 may not be quite high enough to get him into the race.  The same comment applies to The Package (also on 137), who was twelfth in the race last year.  Finally, Standing Ovation has been set 9-7 (130) - he has always appealed as a Grand National type but is most unlikely to get into the final field here - hopefully he will be high enough in the weights next year.