- Saturday, 27 December 2014 09:00
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
It was a good Boxing Day for the yard with two winners from our eight runners, maintaining David's excellent 25% strike rate on the season. Batavir and Alternatif were the winners - Batavir (pictured above) stayed on gamely to beat Bears Affair by 2 1/2 lengths, then Alternatif won the last at Kempton in the dark by a neck - hopefully the handicapper will not be too unkind. Even allowing for the winners though, the performance of the day from any Pond House charge had to be Dynaste's brave second in the King George VI Chase. He put in a great round of jumping and stayed on in really pleasing fashion to be beaten only by old rival Silviniaco Conti - he picked up a handy £42,000 in prize money so owner John White must be delighted.
- Friday, 26 December 2014 08:13
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Hoping the Stockings filled with
Christmas & New Year's winners!!
Well I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas today but today is my favourite day with a Christmas cracker of sport. Today we have eights jumps cards at Kempton, Wetherby, Wincanton, Market Rasen, Fontwell, Sedgefield, Huntingdon and Towcester. There is also a flat card at Wolverhampton plus some great action in Ireland as well. David has runners at four meetings today. Jockey Conor O'Farrell takes the long trip to Wetherby to ride Broadway Buffalo and Vif Argent. They will be seeing if they can do a repeat performance of their win in the Tommy Whittle chase at Haydock just last Saturday. He carries a six pound penalty and as long as the race doesn't come to soon he looks to have a great chance of following up. We have two runners in the 1.40pm Pertemps race at Wincanton, Softsong and Batavir. Young Michael Heard takes a handy seven pounds off of Softsong but Batavir looks to have a great chance running with a penalty after his nice win at Ascot last week. As you may have heard, Tom Scu is going to ride Batavir before making the 36 minute helicopter journey to Kempton to ride Dynaste in the King George and Alternatif in the last race. We also have two runners at Towcester, Obistar and For 'n' Against with Kieron Edgar partnering both of these.
- Wednesday, 24 December 2014 12:44
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
I normally play golf on Christmas Day, although with my bad shoulder that is out of the question. Some comedian even suggested that I could help with the Christmas dinner this year! I eat it...what more do they expect?! The television schedule looks as though it is filled with repeats, although I haven't yet found out when Mary Poppins is on (afterall, it is on every Christmas!). It's funny, I never realise how much I miss my racing until we don't have it for a few days - Mrs Barnes says that it takes up my entire life but that just isn't true...I have golf and football as well! Thinking about it, maybe she does have a point.
- Wednesday, 24 December 2014 08:26
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
I have already been busy ploughing through the form books ahead of Boxing Day. With no fewer than eight jumps meetings taking place (as well as an all-weather card at Wolverhampton) it is going to take some doing! Stable jockey Tom Scudamore will be flying between meetings to ride at Wincanton before heading off to Kempton. Tom is very keen to get aboard easy Ascot winner Batavir who contests the 1.40pm race at Wincanton under a penalty before taking the ride aboard Dynaste in the King George VI Chase at Kempton and forecast favourite Alternatif in the 3.45pm race there. Apparently it takes 36 minutes to fly between the tracks so, with a strong book of rides it could be a profitable afternoon for Scu and the Pond House team. Batavir (pictured above) is my idea of a late Christmas present, let's hope that Santa thinks I have been a suitably good boy this year!
- Tuesday, 23 December 2014 08:16
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Even though there is no racing now until Boxing Day, life around the stable still goes on very much as normal. With 100 or so horses around the place that need to be looked after as well as exercised there is plenty for the staff to be doing. Meanwhile, David will also be mulling over who runs where over the Festive season - there are eight meetings with declarations closing today and the stable has entries at six of them! When he has finished with his running plans, David then needs to sort out which jockeys will be riding where (and there is often a shortage of jockeys on a Bank Holiday) and finally when all that is decided, arrangements need to be made to transport the horses to the races and the logistics of getting to multiple meetings is an art in itself. To the casual racegoer who opens their racecard on Boxing Day they will give little thought to what has gone into getting these horses to the races and the work involved behind the scenes.
- Monday, 22 December 2014 08:50
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
There was another nice winner for the yard on Saturday when Broadway Buffalo (pictured above) was the ready winner of the Tommy Whittle chase at Haydock on Saturday. I thought that Conor O'Farrell gave him a fantastic ride, dropping him out at the back and putting him to sleep - in fact, he never even put him in the race until approaching the last and when he finally did ask him for his effort the race was over in a matter of strides. Conor is one of the most laid back individuals you are ever likely to meet and this ride typified him to perfection. Meanwhile, Taj Badalandabad ran okay on his handicap debut to finish fourth, although I just wonder whether the bottomless ground may have found him out?
- Saturday, 20 December 2014 13:11
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
With only four days to go until Christmas there are only two meetings taking place today over the sticks from Fakenham and Lingfield and the stable does not have any runners. Stable jockey Tom Scudamore makes the journey to Lingfield where he has three outside rides so I will be cheering him on as he closes on his seasonal ton. Indeed, with Bangor on Monday being the final jump meeting before Christmas and the stable far from certain to have runners there, our next racecourse representatives could be on Boxing Day...and what a prospect that is!
