- Wednesday, 04 January 2012 07:45
- Written by David Pipe
We enjoyed a tremendous across the card treble last Friday courtesy of Tamarinbleu at Haydock and Mr Chow and Arab League at Taunton. Tamarinbleu (who remember, turned 12 on Sunday) put up a remarkable performance to land the veteran’s handicap chase at Haydock under top weight of 11-12 on really testing ground under a textbook Timmy Murphy ride. The subsequent four day ban that Timmy received for hitting the horse one more time than permitted highlights everything that is wrong with the sport at present. Timmy nursed Tamarinbleu around the 2m5f trip and didn’t panic even when it appeared that he might just lose touch with his rivals at the top of the straight. He cajoled his willing mount back into contention and didn’t resort to the stick until before the penultimate fence…this was a copybook ride and was anything but abuse – to me it was probably one of the finest rides of Timmy Murphy’s career, giving his all while still trying to look after his mount. Just because the furore around the new whip regulations has died down, it doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away – it is still there, and it still needs addressing!
Mr Chow put up a very impressive performance to land his second staying handicap chase at Taunton under Tom Scudamore. Malcolm Denmark’s seven year old gelding has improved out of all recognition since the switch to fences and a step up in trip. Mr Chow defied a 9lbs rise in the weights to win by 20 lengths in effortless fashion and the handicapper was obviously suitably impressed - he is due to go up by 19lbs in future handicaps, and as such will be turned out again this afternoon (Wednesday)at Southwell under a 7lbs penalty. Conor O’Farrell’s 3lbs claim will offset some of his penalty.
I was delighted that young Frank Hayes was able to ride his first winner over obstacles for us when Arab League (pictured right) absolutely trounced his rivals in the conditional jockey’s handicap hurdle. Frank is a conscientious lad who has been with us for just over 12 months and has had a few rides and some near misses, so it was certainly a great achievement for him to score his debut jumps win – hopefully it will be the first of many. The handicapper was clearly impressed with Arab League too – a rise of 13lbs to a new rating of 136 will make life in handicaps very difficult and so we have taken the liberty of putting him in the re-opened Grade One Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown this weekend. We will take a good look at how the race develops before deciding.
Swing Bowler (left), David Johnson’s beautifully bred daughter of great race mare Lady Cricket (by top stallion Galileo, who among others is sire of no less than the mighty Frankel!) signed off 2011 in the best possible style with an impressive success in the concluding bumper at Warwick under Timmy Murphy. She is now unbeaten in two bumpers and while the form of her debut success at Wincanton is not inspiring, she showed a spritely turn of foot to quicken from a steady pace to score at Warwick under a penalty and she is clearly a very useful prospect for the future.
African Broadway was the one to get us off the mark for 2012 with a hard fought victory in a novices’ hurdle at Exeter. Although odds-on punters will have been just a little worried as runner-up Billy Merriott loomed up at the second last apparently full of running, our fellow is nothing if not game and pulled out more under Tom Scudamore to score by ½ length. He will probably improve further for a step up in trip and will make a smashing chaser one day although there will be other hurdle races to win with him along the way.
Looking forward, we will be entering recent Grade One runner-up Notus de la Tour in the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown this morning for 29th January. He put up a great performance last time to finish second to Blackstair Mountain and jockey Robbie Power thought that he might well have won if the ground had not dried out so significantly. He will certainly be worthy of his place in the line-up, and we will just be keeping our fingers crossed for plenty of rain between now and then.
We have plenty of entries for the weekend, with action taking place at Chepstow, Wincanton and Sandown to name but a few of the meetings. As always, you can keep up to date with the latest news on our runners by checking out Chester’s Daily Chat…
