- Thursday, 23 July 2015 07:34
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
Today we have five meetings taking place with flat cards from Sandown, Wolverhampton, Newbury and Doncaster as well as a jumps fixture at Worcester. The stable has two runners at Worcester; Lady Of Longstone and Flabello contest the two divisions of the amateur riders' handicap hurdle and they are both partnered by young David Noonan. David is very capable and will take a handy 5lbs off their backs which is good news as they were both saddled with top weight of 11-12. Despite that burden I still think that Lady Of Longstone (pictured above) will run a big race. Our five year old mare has been in great form of late winning and finishing second a couple of times. She bumped into a rapid improver when runner-up last time but still ran well to come well clear of the remainder and would be unlucky to find another rival like that. Flabello also has top weight despite not finishing in the frame in six starts - obviously the handicapper has seen something that I have missed!
- Wednesday, 22 July 2015 07:32
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
I'm afraid it's another blank day for fans of the jumping game with no fewer than five flat meetings taking place from Catterick, Bath, Lingfield, Sandown and Leicester. Once again Lingfield need to be named and shamed for their £29,000 prize money across their seven race card...pretty poor when you consider that the Arab meeting on Sunday carries £158,000 in prize money. Furthermore, admission is free and gates open at midday - well done Sheikh Hamdan!
- Tuesday, 21 July 2015 07:42
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
We have four flat meetings to look forward to this afternoon at Ffos Las, Musselburgh, Chelmsford City and Wetherby. It looks as though Chelmsford are reaping the benefits of re-waxing their surface as they have seventy-five runners at their meeting this evening, while they also have an impressive £80,000 in prize money up for grabs. A good effort all round from them and the other tracks should certainly take note.
- Monday, 20 July 2015 07:27
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with three flat cards from Ayr, Beverley and Windsor as well as the second day of Cartmel's fantastic jumps fixture. The stable had one runner yesterday and I thought that Brenda de Ronceray ran a decent race to finish third in the bumper at Newton Abbot. She made most of the running under Tom Scudamore before plugging on to finish third and the experience of this second start will continue to benefit her. The stable has no runners this afternoon.
- Saturday, 18 July 2015 10:46
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
Today we have three meetings and the really good news is that two of them are over the jumps! The flat card is from Redcar, while the jumping action comes from Newton Abbot and Stratford. David has one runner this afternoon, Brenda de Ronceray who takes in the closing bumper at 5.05pm and Tom Scudamore is on board. She was far from disgraced on her debut at Worcester and hopefully that experience will have done her the world of good. I see that Barry Geraghty goes to Newton Abbot for just one ride - it looks like a nice, easy start to his retainer as JP's number one jockey!
- Saturday, 18 July 2015 07:59
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
It's a busy day ahead with eight meetings taking place and yes, there are a couple of jumps cards among them! The six flat meetings come from Newbury, Newmarket, Chester, Ripon, Haydock and Lingfield while the National Hunt action comes from Market Rasen and Cartmel. David runs Kie and Purple 'N Gold in the Summer Hurdle at 2.55pm and Dell' Arca in the Summer Plate at 3.30pm - both look extremely competitive races as you would expect for the sums of prize money on offer. Dell' Arca (pictured above) is the shortest priced of ours at around 9/1 and he was a ready winner of a novices' chase last time out and he might be okay from a mark of 142. He has run creditably in most of the big handicap hurdles and some of his chase form has also worked out nicely. Kie makes his debut for the stable in the hurdle, while Purple 'N Gold finished runner-up in the race last year (albeit from a 7lbs lower mark) - he always runs his race and I am sure he will perform creditably again this afternoon.
- Friday, 17 July 2015 08:07
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
I'm afraid it's another blank day if you are a fan of the jumps as there are six meetings taking place this afternoon and they are all on the flat with the action coming from Hamilton, Haydock, Newbury, Newmarket, Nottingham and Pontefract. The other thing I noticed about today was that there are 41 races and there is not a single seller or claimer among them. Back in my time as assistant to MCP we used to get lots of our horses out of these type of races - I may be looking back through rose tinted spectacles but there seemed to be more opportunities to obtain horses from those races. I remember one day claiming the first three home in a race from Bath - owners and trainers were following us around trying to find out which horses we were going to try to claim. I wonder why there aren't more sellers or claimers these days - with all of these 0-60 and 0-65 handicaps on the flat, you cannot tell me that there are not enough horses to run in them!
