- Monday, 18 July 2011 19:38
- Written by David Pipe
Delighted connections of Qulinton greet their Summer Plate winner
It was a fantastic weekend for the yard with Qulinton absolutely bolting up in the Listed Summer Plate Chase at Market Rasen on Saturday. The application of a pair of blinkers certainly woke him up and he produced a great performance to demolish his field by 19 lengths.
The form of his previous narrow win at Worcester had received a nice boost when the second home, Sir Ian routed his opposition by 35 lengths last month, so the subsequent rise of 10lbs in the weights did not look out of the way. I have liked the horse for a long time and he has often struck me as the type to win a nice prize - another rise in the handicap is surely on it’s way, taking his rating somewhere into the upper 140’s, however if he can continue to build on this then another decent prize may be within his compass.
The obvious next target could well be the Galway Plate in Ireland on 27th July – his enthusiastic owners certainly enjoy a bit of craic and providing all goes well between now and then (and the early signs are good) then he could bid to give me a second Irish winner. He could well be joined by Matuhi who was last seen in April when winning a valuable handicap chase at Haydock under Hadden Frost. He has had a little break since then and the Galway Plate looks to be the ideal type of race for him.
Another that ran a blinding race on Saturday was Street Entertainer in the Listed Summer Handicap Hurdle. Our four year old was carrying top weight and was only beaten 2 ½ lengths – unfortunately the rain on top of the already watered ground was not in his favour and in the circumstances he did extremely well to finish so close. He remains an exciting and very progressive young horse who will be seen to better effect on a more galloping track on better ground.
Those of you regular racegoers may well have seen our recovering stable jockey Tom Scudamore at the races recently. Tom has been on the sidelines since injuring his shoulder in a nasty fall at the Grand National meeting in April, but has today been to see his specialist who gave him the all clear to begin riding out again.
Not one to rest on my laurels of course, I have Tom down to ride several lots tomorrow (Tuesday) morning! On a serious note though, it will be great to have him back, although I cannot speak highly enough of our team of jockeys who have done such a good job in his absence. The main benefactor has been young Conor O’Farrell who has enjoyed considerable success, including in the Midlands National and Summer Plate – I am sure that there will be many more big race victories for him.
