Looking To The Festival

Later on in the day Binocular clearly appreciated his reappearance run and put in an impressive display in landing the Christmas Hurdle and he gave notice that once again come March he is going to be very much the one to beat in the Champion Hurdle. The Champion is shaping up to be a cracking contest with a number of improvers (such as Hurricane Fly, Menorah and Peddler’s Cross) coming through, but it will certainly take a good one to get past Binocular and McCoy. We will be entering Notus de la Tour and Ronaldo des Mottes and while on official figures they have to improve, I still believe they warrant an entry at this early stage.

Despite the second favourite winning the King George VI, the result can be considered nothing but a surprise as Kauto Star was thwarted in his attempt to land a historic fifth consecutive success in the race. It would have been great for the sport if he had been able to manage the feat, but there was no semblance of fluke about the winner Long Run. I have followed his career since his hurdling days in France and have always thought very highly of him. Still only six years of age, Long Run looks likely to be around on the big stage for many years to come. Congratulations also to the Waley-Cohen family – Sam produced a lovely ride to land the spoils for his father Robert and I was delighted for them.

Along with Kazzene on Saturday, we enjoyed two further winners earlier in the week when Sona Sasta made an impressive chasing debut at Taunton, while Arrayan handled the heavy ground best of all to win at Hereford over hurdles. Both are set to contend with massive rises in the weights, and while visually impressive, I feel that the handicappers should remember that the softer ground can often exaggerate winning margins.

I am sure that my eighty year old handyman/groundsman Tony Loman backed them. Tony is a shrewd judge and he had a right result last week when he went to his local bookmakers – having checked his selections in the following day’s paper, he went to collect his winnings for three winners on a Lucky 15. Expecting about £40, you can imagine his surprise when the manager told him that he didn’t have enough money in the shop! As it turned out, Tony’s final selection had won and subsequently been disqualified – fortunately for him his bookmaker pays out on both results and that concession netted him nearly £500! Tony’s a lovely man and I was really pleased for him.

Earlier in the week we made a number of entries for the Totesport Trophy at Newbury as well as some of the races for the Cheltenham Festival. For the Totesport we entered three in the shape of last year’s runner-up Ronaldo des Mottes, fourth Mamlook (who has this afternoon made a successful chasing debut) and Cheltenham Festival runner-up Notus de la Tour.

For the Cheltenham Festival we entered I’m So Lucky in the Queen Mother Champion Chase while we also made an entry for last year’s Byrne Group Chase winner Great Endeavour in the Gold Cup…with less than two months to go, I can feel the tension mounting – I can’t wait!