Our sole runner at Windsor, On Khee ran a much better race on the level last night, finishing third at Windsor under Simon Pearce.  On this evidence there should be a little race in her in that sphere, while you would think that she could also break her duck over hurdles.  Today there are four flat cards at Beverley, Ffos Las, Yarmouth and Southwell - there are three races at Southwell that are worth less than £2,000 in prizemoney, mind you they have attracted big fields of runners so these owners are not worried about how much their horses are competing for!  If they keep running, the tracks will continue to take the mickey!

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Today there are four flat cards at Ayr, Southwell, Windsor and Wolverhampton.  I thought that Shoegazer jumped well at Southwell yesterday under a good ride from Tom Scudamore and won with a bit in hand, easin him down in the closing stages.  The ground turned out to be good, even good/firm in places which obviously didn't bother our charge, who seems to be very versatile with regard to underfoot conditions.  Under a double penalty I would say that it was probably quite a good performance.  Meanwhile Molly Oscar finished fourth in her first start under rules and should know more next time.

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       Raslan (left) on the Gallops

It is still raining at Pond House this morning!  Another 3 1/2 mm in the last 24 hours bringing the total for July to over 85mm.  That is over double what we had for the whole of July in 2011 already!  Salisbury is he latest victim of the weather and its meeting for this evening has been abandoned.  There are five flat cards across the country today at Newmarket, Newbury, York, Chester and Hamilton (which has passed its inspection).  The stable has a runner at Newbury with Raslan who runs in the 2 mile handicap.  He has lots of ability and has been a useful handicapper over hurdles for several since joining Pond House several years ago but he has not won on the flat for six years.  He is quite well handicapped on old form and although ideally he prefers a bit better ground it will be interestting to see how he gets on.

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        War Singer on the Gallops

There is a cracking card at Newmarket today which looks very competitive.  The 3.00pm race is the Group One Falmouth stakes and Andre Fabre brings over his top class filly Golden Lilac.  She has already won a couple of Group One races and she looks the star on todays card.  There are five meetings on the flat in total today and we also have action from York, Newbury, Chester and Chepstow (inspection at midday).  David has a runner on the flat at Newbury, War Singer.  He runs in the 4.35pm handicap over 1m2f and we have booked Eddie Ahern to ride.  He is having his first run on the flat in this country but has won five times on the flat in France so it will be interesting to see how he gets on and if he handles the testing ground.  We had another 16mm of rain at Pond House in the last 24 hours and it is still raining at the moment.  Will it ever stop?!

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Too Generous After Winning at Worcester Last Week

Today there are five flat meetings at Newmarkat, Doncaster, Epsom, Folkestone and Warwick but the last named meeting has to pass an 8am inspection.  Did anyone see the rain coming down at Catterick yesterday?  The meeting was abandoned after the 3.50pm race and the track looked like it would have been better to hold a motorbike scramble meeting!  Yet as we have been saying all along it is a mixed bag across the country with the weather at the moment and the ground at todays Folkestone meeting is given as good to firm!  All the other meetings are either soft or heavy!  We are due quite a bit more rain at Pond House today but surely the sun has got to start shining soon?!

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There are five meetings on today with four of them on the flat at Yarmouth, Catterick, Lingfield and Kempton but by far the most interesting could be the jumps card at Worcester.  The Racing Post are reporting that there could be a boycott of the final race on the card in a protest against prize money levels - the race in question falls £900 short of the tarriff recommended by the Horsemen's Group.

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It's not very often that I get my picture on the front page of the Racing Post, but sure enough there's a picture of yours truly leading in our 1994 Grand National winner Miinnehoma.  As you will most likely know by now, Miinnehoma sadly passed away over the weekend - he was 29 years old and lived out his retirement at the yard.  He was the oldest living Grand National winner and although like me, he was going a bit grey in the end, he was a popular regular visitor to Aintree for the parade of former winners.

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