One Week To Go!

With only eight days left to go until the start of the 2016 Cheltenham Festival I am pleased to report that the horses are in rude health and five winners and many other creditable performances last week only serves to reaffirm this belief. All of the entries have been made for the four day fixture and the process of finding the best opportunity for each of our intended runners has already begun…now is very much a time of nervous anticipation.

It is certainly good to see the horses performing at a high level and we were in the winners’ enclosure with our first jumps runners of the week when Abracadabra Sivola made a successful debut for the Pond House team with victory in the novices’ chase at Leicester on Tuesday. He had previously shown bits and pieces of decent form although his jumping had become a cause for concern. We have done plenty of work with him at home and his jumping was good on the whole – he is a great big sort who can sometimes get in a bit close to his fences but he was clever here. He clearly stays very well and ground out a determined victory under Tom Scudamore over the odds-on favourite who looked to be travelling the better in the straight. This was very encouraging and will hopefully have provided a good confidence builder for him.

I was pleased to get a win out of La Vaticane in the 2m4f handicap chase at Wincanton on Wednesday. She has run several good races since joining us from France last season but hadn’t managed to get her head in front. She travelled well throughout on this occasion until finding herself in front three from home (certainly plenty soon enough) and she was still just about in front when her chief rival capsized two out. La Vaticane appeared to be idling at the time but the departure of the other horse meant that she had a much easier race than had seemed likely. She will have accrued a penalty for this and is likely to participate in one of the handicaps at Cheltenham next week.

Luck seemed to be on our side again on Thursday in the novices’ handicap chase when Vazaro Delafayette made a quick winning reappearance at Taunton following an easy victory at Huntingdon the week previous. There is no questioning his ability, although he did look to be displaying some signs of quirkiness when the complexion of the race changed at the third last when a couple of his rivals parted company with their riders, impeding his other sole rival and leaving Vaz in front. Even then he was doing only enough to hold on in the closing stages. For all his foibles though, he has now won three of his last four starts and can only continue to improve with experience over the larger obstacles.

Earlier in the day the double had been initiated when Top Wood ran out a convincing winner of the three mile handicap chase at Ludlow under Conor O’Farrell. Travelling much more sweetly than of late on the soft ground and in a change of headgear, he gradually came clear in the straight to record a 16 length success. He should continue to perform well in handicaps where stamina is at a premium.

Our final winner of the week came at Newbury on Saturday when popular old stager Shotavodka (pictured above) won the veterans’ chase in good style having shown up well in a similar contest at Doncaster the previous week. Aside from the fact that we have an extremely good record in these contests(!), I believe these are a great initiative to give the old boys another chance to win a valuable race. Unlike the flat, the public form an attachment to these grand old warriors who return every season. Shotavodka could now go for another such contest at Ascot at the end of the month.

There were a number of other good efforts too with the likes of Lady Of Longstone, Impulsive American, Fingertips, Ikrapol and Bella all reaching the prize money.

Looking to this week we will have plenty of entries with relatively local meetings at the likes of Exeter, Wincanton and Chepstow coming up, although the big fixture of the week is undoubtedly Sandown’s Imperial Cup card on Saturday. We have an excellent record in the race having won it three times in the past, while my father won it on a further six occasions. This year we will have two entries in Starchitect and Konig Dax, while on the same afternoon Chic Theatre is a possible runner in the valuable EBF hurdle final.

Also this week, I will be on the panel for the Chelteham Festival preview at Taunton this Friday. It should be an informative event and if you are interested in going, you can find out more from the racecourse website.

Last week we were joined by legendary broadcaster Mike Vince who once again kindly gave of his time and expertise to bring you some content that I hope you will find of interest in the days leading up to the Festival. Mike caught up with me, stable jockey Tom Scudamore and conditionals Michael Heard, Kieron Edgar and David Noonan. You can see my video by clicking the link below, while Tom Scu and the others will appear in Chester’s Daily Chat over the coming days.

 David Pipe Cheltenham Festival 2016

Moon Racer (pictured right) will be confirmed at the five day stage for the Supreme Novices Hurdle on the Tuesday of the Cheltenham Festival. He had some schooling sessions last week and he will have more sessions this week before we make a decision on his participation over the weekend.

Finally I was taking a look through the program book and was interested to see that Catterick are to hold an ‘open’ selling handicap hurdle race. Sellers and claimers are races that we have always been interested in, and I think this is a great idea although I would like to offer a couple of thoughts to make this initiative even more appealing and successful in future. At present the claiming price for any runner in the field is £5,000 - if the claiming price were raised, along with the prize money to an appealing level I am sure it would be well contested and generate plenty of interest. The ‘super seller’ at Uttoxeter always had a competitive field and this would take it one stage further still.

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