- Monday, 11 January 2016 16:48
- Written by David Pipe
The weather continues to play havoc with the going and the fixture list and looking ahead it looks as though we are in for more of the same and we could be thin on the ground with action for this week. Still, a winner last week courtesy of Mount Haven (pictured above) took us onto the 49 winner mark for the campaign and I hope it is not long before we are celebrating our seasonal half century.
With Ayr abandoned and just a couple of all-weather flat cards today (Monday) unsurprisingly we are without any runners, and while Fakenham have already fallen foul of the weather, we have three chances at Ludlow tomorrow where the going is a positively lightning fast heavy, soft in places! We run The Minkle, Baraka de Thaix and Doctor Harper there and the latter pair are already winners on heavy ground so the underfoot conditions should hold no terrors for them. Baraka de Thaix had some decent form in France and is capable of going well in this maiden hurdle, while Doctor Harper was a class act over timber a couple of seasons ago and while he is yet to attain those heights over the larger obstacles it is great to have him back on the track nonetheless.
It is a similar story on Wednesday with Newcastle already abandoning their meeting due to waterlogging, although we have plenty of entries at Taunton on Wednesday and I am sure we will have runners there so long as racing goes ahead without a hitch. Things aren’t looking much better for the weekend either with Saturday’s ground at Warwick already heavy (with the added anticipated problem of frost), while Kelso on Sunday is waterlogged in places. It is quite extraordinary how the courses have suffered so badly – we have recorded the rainfall on a daily basis at Pond House for many years and the total for 2015 was considerably less than 2014 and there have been no individual days where we have had ridiculous amounts of rain. I guess it has just been prolonged and persistent downpours – either way, while plenty of the jumps trainers may have wanted softer ground for their horses, I don’t suppose there are too many that wanted this kind of winter ground! We will certainly be keeping an eye on the skies over the coming days before making any firm running plans.
I was pleased to be among the winners again last week when Mount Haven made a successful reappearance when taking the maiden hurdle at Ludlow on Monday. A winner of a Fontwell bumper, he had previously finished in the frame on three of his four starts over hurdles without getting his head in front last term so it was great to break his duck over timber. He jumped and travelled nicely and won a shade cosily from the second favourite who boasted some fair form in France. I was pleasantly surprised by how well he handled the heavy ground, so hopefully he will be able to go onto better things.
There were only a handful of runner for the remainder of last week and I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed by the performance of Dell’ Arca. He has been a smashing horse for us since arriving at Pond House in 2013, winning the Greatwood Hurdle that year and running some great races in defeat. However, he has only managed to get his head in front once since then (in a novices’ chase) and remains in the grip of the handicapper. Following a couple of below-par efforts, hopefully he will get a bit of respite.
Finally, I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to owner Arnie Kaplan who was awarded a much deserved MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours for his services to charity. Arnie, who currently has Amigo at Pond House works extremely hard to raise money for underprivileged children and I am thrilled that he has been recognised, very well done!
