- Tuesday, 18 October 2011 12:16
- Written by David Pipe
It looks like being a hectic week with plenty of jumping action to look forward to. In fact there are no fewer than twelve National Hunt meetings taking place and we have entries at most of them. We enjoyed a double at Exeter on Tuesday courtesy of My Brother Sylvest (Tom Scudamore), while young amateur Tom Bellamy scored his first success since joining us at Pond House when a late replacement aboard Soulard (pictured above).
We have loads of entries for the remainder of the week with Arab League, Tigger, Bathwick Brave, Ladyvie, Trop Fort, Shoegazer, Teshali, Bathwick Man, Battle Group, Barney Cool, Raslan, Frosted Grape, and Gentle Ranger all engaged. We will take a look through the races and pick out the most suitable opportunities for them and as usual you can keep up to date with all of the news on our runners as well as the latest from the gallops by viewing Chester’s Daily Chat.
I am looking forward to welcoming Racing Post writer Peter Thomas later in the week to conduct an interview for their excellent Stable Tour series – award winning photographer Ed Whittaker joined us last week to take the pictures that will accompany the tour. We have plenty of talent to look forward to in the months ahead and I will enjoy talking with Peter about our aspirations for this winter.
Looking to the skies, it is hard to believe that we are in mid-October. The unseasonably warm and dry weather has meant that our local track, Taunton have already had to abandon their first meeting of the season due to the dangerously firm ground. At least with their early cancellation, the meeting has been able to be moved to Chepstow instead…well done to all concerned.
On Saturday Frankel once again demonstrated his extraordinary brilliance in landing the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and highlighted all that is great in our sport. Owners and trainers can wait a lifetime and still never get a horse of such quality. Sir Henry Cecil is certainly a very lucky man, but he has handled this incredible colt brilliantly and it was a privilege to have been present to witness Frankel’s greatness on a racecourse. We are spoiled to have another year of him to look forward to and hopefully his endeavours on the track will help to keep the sport in the headlines for the right reasons.