Ups And Downs

American Art (C O'Farrell) is successful at Huntingdon

It’s been a week of rather mixed fortunes with American Art’s success at Huntingdon last Monday being the obvious highlight.  Conor O’Farrell gave him a very confident ride and he clearly gets a good tune out of him as he is now unbeaten in two starts on the gelding.  An official rating of 113 means that he is going to continue to struggle in handicap company, but he is in good form and will continue to pay his way in this type of race.

Unfortunately we have also hit the crossbar on more than one occasion with Bathwick Scanno, Tigger and Beattie Green all finishing close second’s in the past few days, while Vertige Dore took an unlucky fall at Hereford on Wednesday.  Still, at least it shows that the horses continue in good form and I am pleased to say that Vertige Dore is none the worse for his experience.  It was just one of those annoying falls where the horse jumps the fence absolutely fine and then just crumples on landing – he is certainly deserving of change of fortune over fences having “won” on his debut at Worcester last month only to be subsequently demoted in the stewards’ room.  Granted a bit of luck in running and a clear round, he should be more than capable of winning races over fences.

Looking to the coming week, we will not be heading north to Sedgefield tomorrow (Tuesday), although we have a number of entries at Uttoxeter on Wednesday before the usual ten day summer break kicks in.  At Uttoxeter we have entered Lion Road (pictured left, farside), Lady Vie, Very Cool, Tasheba and Laustra Bad (also pictured, nearside) and you will be able to find out more about who runs by keeping up to date with Chester’s Daily Chat.

The summer break is an excellent time to recharge the batteries and many of the jockeys take the opportunity to get in a few rounds of golf and Marbella has always been a popular choice.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a handful of the jocks heading over to Spain for some well earned down time – if you have a late summer break booked, be warned!  There will be no such break for me however, and the routine at Pond House will carry on very much as normal as we prepare for the jumps season to step up another gear on our return.

Time continues to fly by and I cannot believe that it is the final Classic of the flat season, the St Leger at Doncaster this Saturday, it looks to be a high quality renewal, but very soon we will be talking about the Arc, Breeders Cup and then onto the major jumps meetings – roll on!

You may have read in Chester’s column earlier in the week that the Pipe football team narrowly lost out (on penalties) to Philip Hobbs’ side on Friday evening.   Sadly I was unable to participate, but it hasn’t stopped Philip’s assistant, Johnson White goading me via text message and suggesting that my staff would be better off practising their penalties rather than riding out the string!  It is all good natured stuff, but we will look forward to exacting our revenge next time Johnson!...