Winning Debut

 
           Jilaijone Winner at Fontwell

It was a quiet week on the runner’s front due to the weather but I was delighted to get one winner from our runners since last writing. Jilaijone won on stable debut at Fontwell for owner Sam Sutton. Sam claimed his three year old after he finished third at Angouleme over hurdles on only his second race of his life and what a buy he was for 11,000 Euros!! He is not the biggest but I don’t mind that as he has plenty of ability and a good attitude. He settled in well since day one and had done everything we had asked of him but I have to admit I travelled to Fontwell last Tuesday thinking we had it all to do in a tough race but I hoped we would be placed. How wrong was I!! On paper it looked a good juvenile contest with our rivals having both a higher level of form and prices tags to varying degrees as well. The Philip Hobbs trained favourite Mombasa had listed form in France and came with a hefty price tag of 250,000 Euros. Our fella was the outsider of the field but he travelled and jumped very nicely in behind and was going best approaching two from home. When Tom Scu asked him for more he galloped on strongly up the hill and won nicely. There was no fluke about this victory and I am looking forward to getting him out again soon. He will get a handicap mark tomorrow and so there are plenty of options going’s forwards, we could try this route or stick to another juvenile contest with a penalty.

In other runners last week Lock Out finished third on his first try in a handicap. He got outpaced as the field turned for home but he stuck to his guns well and galloped all the way to the line. We will step him up in trip next time.  Al Roc pulled up at Doncaster on Friday and we made the decision after the race to retire him. We have only had the eleven year old a year but he has been fantastic for us and won four races and over £45,000 in prize money in that time. He has won twelve races in a brilliant career and over £430,000 in lifetime earnings. ‘Alan’ as he is affectionately known as in the yard is a lovely character with a great attitude and his owners, Fergus and Judith Wilson have gifted him to Bex who looks after him at Pond House and adores him. He will live not far from the yard and have a very happy forever home as a horse of leisure.

This Week

Looking ahead to this week, prospects for racing look pretty bleak. We were due to have runners at Plumpton, Marley Rasen and Wincanton which have all been called off. Inspections are being held prior to race day at both Newbury and Exeter for their meetings on Wednesday and Thursday and they are not too hopeful. Ffos Las are currently raceable and we do have entries there so we will just have to see what happens. As far as I can see, the weather is not really due to warm up until Sunday at the earlier and so we could be in for a quiet week. Keep checking the daily blog for more news of our runners and the prospects of racing going ahead.

Clerks of the Courses

I am sure being a clerk of a course is very much thankless role at times and who would want to be one!! For a while now we have all been praying for rain and the clerks have been getting a bit of stick re firm ground and watering, or lack of!! We have now moved swiftly to a cold snap and this can’t be much fun for them either!! While frustrating for trainers, owners and jockeys alike they are all trying to do their job and can’t win in a lot of situations. All I can say to any of them if they happen to be reading this is please just be honest. If the ground is good to firm, say it is good to firm and don’t tell us it is good, for us to then turn up at the races to have been misled. While ‘going’s’ can be somewhat subjective, they all use going stick readers these days which gives us readings we can all compare. While you cannot necessarily compare readings between different courses you can look at historical figures for all the courses to compare the goings which is what I often look at. With regards to frost and calling meetings off, I applaud the courses being proactive. The covers are great but we all know they can only do so much and an early inspection and calling things off at least leaves everyone in no doubt and we can make plans and save money by not travelling. Clerks of courses in general do a great job and communicate well with trainers. Our climate is changing and we are all going to have to live with it and adapt. A couple of my owners are now saying they might not want horses who prefer heavy going and I can see their point. While we will get rain and heavy going at some point, there does seem to be less and less of it in recent years- cue flooding in January probably!!

Mega Sale Prices

On Friday I went to Cheltenham sales with my eye on a couple of horses but sadly came away empty handed. While the world is in economic crisis, horse prices remain high. I was under bidder to Gordon Elliott both times.  Gordon bought seven from the sales so the Irish teams are getting stronger and stronger.  There is now a little break in the sales over Christmas but there are always horses on the market privately and I shall be keeping an ear to the ground about suitable horses becoming available.

Taunton Seller

I did purchase one horse last week, I bought Poseidon after he won the selling hurdle at Taunton for Gordon Elliott. He has been purchased for the David Pipe Racing Club and should give all our members a lot of fun. He is rated 135 over hurdles and fences and I spoke to Gordon before the race about the horse. He has won seven races in his career, on the flat, over hurdles and over fences. If he had finished second in the race I think there would have been a lot of claims put in for him and I think he is a great buy at £12,000. Eight claims went in for the horse that finished second trained by Charles Byrnes and the pair were miles clear of their rivals.

Lapland

The boys (me and my son Jack) are home alone this week as Leanne is taking our girls to Lapland to see Father Christmas. We went as a family a few years ago before Martha came along and Leanne wanted her to have the same experience we all had. Martha knows nothing about the trip and even sister Sophie has kept this secret very well. Martha won’t know anything about it until she is woken in the early hours to go to the airport - I can’t wait to see her face!! They will have an amazing time while jack and I will hold the fort back at home!