- Monday, 28 December 2015 13:03
- Written by David Pipe
Well, here we go with the final blog of 2015…where have the last twelve months gone? There have been some great successes to look back upon over the last year with the likes of The Package and Moon Racer scoring at the Cheltenham Festival in March, while Ballynagour and Un Temps Pour Tout scooped big prizes over hurdles in France during the summer. Meanwhile we have made a solid start to the current campaign with the stable currently fifth in the trainers’ standings with forty five winners on the board heading into 2016.
Hopefully there will be a few more to add to that tally before the year comes to an end. Although we have no runners today, we have plenty of entries over the coming week and we will be heading to both Doncaster and Newbury tomorrow. Our Imperial Cup winner Baltimore Rock makes his chasing debut at Donny and Tom Scudamore will be in the saddle. He was a class act over timber and has pleased me with him schooling at home and I am looking forward to seeing how he fares.
Over at Newbury we run Epic Warrior, Shotavodka and Balgarry. Balgarry was a ready winner of a nice prize at Taunton last time out on only his third start over fences and he will provide an exciting mount for Conor O’Farrell as he is a free-going sort with a great jump in him. Meanwhile, Shotavodka ran a great race to be narrowly denied on his seasonal reappearance and reverts to hurdles tomorrow – he will be ridden by Kieron Edgar who also picks up the ride aboard Epic Warrior on the card.
The remainder of the week remains something of a mystery with the rain playing havoc with the fixture list (especially in the north). We will keep one eye on the skies before deciding running plans. The pick of the action would appear to come from Cheltenham on New Year’s Day and the Pond House entries include last time out winners Champers On Ice, Alternatif and Gevrey Chambertin. Champers and Alternatif are both progressive youngsters, while it was good to see Gevrey Chambertin back in the winners’ enclosure at Lingfield last time.
We will also likely have a runner or two in the valuable veterans’ chase at Sandown on Saturday. The racegoers always give the oldies a generous welcome and it is great that there is a valuable prize for them to aim at. With a prize fund of £100,000 up for grabs I am sure it will be well contested and Pond House favourites Soll, Poole Master and Houston Dynimo are all eligible to run in the final. As always, for all the latest news on runners from the stable you can keep in touch with Chester’s daily chat or by following us on Twitter (@DavidPipeRacing) or on Facebook (David Pipe Racehorse Trainer).
Looking back to last week, we had only a few runners owing to the Christmas holiday period including Ballynagour in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. Unfortunately he disappointed on this occasion, he never travelled with any of his usual fluency under Tom Scudamore who looked after him and pulled him up once his chance had gone. He is clearly better than this as he demonstrated when third, beaten four lengths behind the winner, Cue Card at Wetherby at the end of October. He is high class when on top of his game although his profile shows that he can be somewhat in and out – this effort can be safely ignored and I am sure there will be other days for him.
Congratulations to the Tizzard team on a fantastic performance from the winner – it was a great duel with Irish raider Vautour and it is just a shame that the result was shrouded in controversy with the first two jockeys both in breach of the whip regulations.
I will sign off this week by wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year – let’s hope that 2016 brings plenty of winners for all of us…see you in 2016!
