- Monday, 07 September 2015 15:45
- Written by David Pipe
You can always trust the British weather to make a fool of you and it has certainly shown-up more qualified people than me over the years. Even so, only a week ago I was writing off this summer as a lost cause only to look through this week’s forecast and see a warm, sunny, dry spell is on the cards…not that I am complaining you understand. This certainly has to be considered something of an unexpected bonus.
Most of the horses certainly seemed to appreciate a bit of sunshine as three winners and a couple of other placings has to be considered an excellent return on our eight runners. Epic Warrior started the ball rolling with a facile success in the maiden hurdle at Southwell on Monday. Jumping fluently, as you would expect of this former winning Irish point-to-pointer he surged clear in the straight to win as he pleased by fifteen lengths. It will certainly be interesting to see what the handicapper does with him given that the placed horses were rated 110, 110 and 108 going into the race. They may well be flattered by those figures while the testing ground could also have found some out – I hope the assessor subscribes to that point of view! Either way, it was nice to get a winner on the board for ever enthusiastic and long-standing owners Stuart & Simon Mercer and Pete Green. Stuart has had some great horses at Pond House down the years including the likes of Indian Jockey and Lemons Mill. Let’s hope Epic Warrior can go on to win plenty more races for them.
Winning jockey Kieron Edgar was enjoying his 40th career success which meant a personal milestone for him as he rode out his 5lbs claim and now claims just 3lbs…well done to him.
Onto the weekend and it was certainly a productive one for the yard with Kie scoring on Saturday and Low Key winning on Sunday. A former prolific winner for Donald McCain at the minimum trip, we decided to try Kie at 2m6½f for the first time in his career at the age of seven. His pedigree gave hope that he would be effective and on this occasion he consented to take a lead from his rivals. No doubt his task was made easier by a non-runner and the fall of one of his rivals, but you can do no more than beat what is put in front of you and saw off the favourite in determined fashion. This was a good effort from a mark of 137 - he is a tough, versatile and likeable sort and we will try to find something similar for him, although he could just as easily revert to hurdles.
There was a grandstand finish to the 2m3f handicap hurdle at Fontwell on Sunday as Low Key supplemented his Stratford maiden success by battling on tenaciously to beat the John Ferguson trained Mantou by a short head having been headed inside the final furlong. Only last week I had said that improvement was a distinct possibility when brushing up his jumping and he was a lot better this time, posting a career best effort from a mark of 129. Despite his diminutive frame, our eight year old has guts in spades and you would be pleased to have him on your side in a battle. He already has an entry in next month’s Cesarewitch handicap at Newmarket, although whether he would get into the final line-up is questionable and he will most likely get an entry in the Irish equivalent the following day and he would be a possible runner there.
Unfortunately our trip to France failed to bear fruit on this occasion as Gevrey Chambertin was unplaced in the 2m2f hurdle at Auteuil on Friday. He had travelled out on Monday, settled in well to his new surroundings and I was hopeful of a decent performance from him although this was more of a fact-finding mission. Unfortunately he didn’t really have a cut at these French hurdles (that closely resemble the brush hurdles in use at Haydock, Worcester and Southwell) and lost valuable ground at his flights. Sadly you cannot afford to do that at this level (against the likes of French Gold Cup winners Milord Thomas and Bel la Vie) and he came home unplaced. It is a case of back to the drawing board with him…he has tons of latent ability and I’m sure we will find another winning opportunity for him before long.
Looking to this week, we will have four runners tomorrow (Tuesday) as Brenda de Ronceray and Prince of Poets do duty at Worcester and Skylander and Border Breaker make the long trip to Perth. Border Breaker put up a decent performance on his chasing debut and this drop back in trip ought to suit in the handicap chase.
We also have loads of entries at Uttoxeter on Wednesday including the likes of Kalifourchon, Standing Ovation and Dusk Till Dawn. As there is no further racing before the weekend, we may well have a few runners there – we will look through the entries and see if there are any suitable opportunities…as usual Chester will bring you all the latest on those in his daily chat, or alternatively you can follow us on Twitter @DavidPipeRacing.
