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Well, Happy New Year everyone!  I can't believe that it is 2012...I'm sure there will be a few sore heads around the yard this morning!  Anyway, there is a great day's National Hunt racing lined-up with Cheltenham heading the bill.  Matuhi represents us in the feature chase at Prestbury Park and with over £40,000 up for grabs, it is a very competitive contest as you would expect.  We also have two runners, African Broadway and Unex Degas at our local track, Exeter.  African Broadway takes a big drop in class having run against the likes of Fingal Bay last time, while Unex Degas makes his debut for the stable.

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It was another good day for the yard yesterday with an across the card treble with Mr Chow and Arab League scoring at Taunton, and Tamarinbleu winning at Haydock.  I thought that it was a great performance from our evergreen veteran Tamarinbleu who celebrates his twelfth birthday tomorrow to carry topweight of 11-12 around there in that ground.  It was an amazing ride from Timmy Murphy and he reminds me of a vintage bottle of wine that keeps getting better with age - it was a real masterclass in how to coax one home.  These veteran's races are a great idea - the crowds love to see these old warriors do battle and it gives them good opportunities to get in the winners' enclosure again - the winning prize-money of £11,000 is not to be sniffed at either!

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It looks like being another busy day for the yard with twelve runners (eleven at Taunton and one at Haydock).  David will be busy entertaining all his owners at the local meeting, where among the runners we have last time out course winner Mr Chow and decent ex-flat recruit War Singer. Meanwhile I am pleased to see that Haydock has survived a precautionary 8am inspection to race this afternoon where grand old veteran Tamarinbleu will bid to defy top-weight under Timmy Murphy.  It looks like being a cracking day's racing.

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Bygones Sovereign was only narrowly beaten at Leicester yesterday afternoon in what looked to be a fair novices' hurdle for the course.  The third home, Medinas had winning form and I think that the first three home will all go on to prove themselves useful hurdlers and win further races.

We have two runners this afternoon at Doncaster, Trop Fort and newcomer Bamboleo.  Bamboleo, who runs in the closing bumper certainly looks the part on paper being a brother to Nicky Henderson's very smart hurdler/novice chaser Mossley, with the dam being a half sister to Commanche Court.  Tom Scudamore will ride both our runners.

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We are off to Leicester this afternoon with a couple of runners, Bygones Sovereign who makes his hurdling debut and Enfant de Lune who participates in the handicap hurdle - both will be ridden by Tom Scudamore.  The best of our runners yesterday at Chepstow was Consigliere who ran his best race for some time when third over fences, although he still looks as though he could do with a little bit of respite from the handicapper.

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What a great day's Racing we were treated to at Kempton yesterday afternoon with Kauto Star recording an amazing fifth success in the King George VI Chase - I doubt we will ever see another horse achieve that in our lifetimes.  Having said that, what about Grands Crus who won his race over an identical trip (albeit carrying 3lbs less) by almost three seconds.  A racehorse in full cry can travel quite a long way in three seconds so this was clearly some performance from a novice on only his third start over fences.  It is difficult to know how good could he be as to me he looked to be idling a little in front and certainly wasn't fully exerted.

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Well I hope you all enjoyed a fantastic Christmas day and ate and drank plenty like I did?!  As much as I like Christmas day itself I do like Boxing day even more! It looks a cracking days racing with nine meetings in this country and three in Ireland.  The yard has plenty of runners and we are even over in Ireland with one runner today, Notus De La Tour.  Notus is ridden by Robbie Power and although it is a competitive race he is in good form, he will love the ground and we are hoping for a good run.  I spoke to our lorry over there this morning and they had a good journey across on Saturday and have been looked after very well by Leopardstown and have enjoyed a great Christmas day!  There is some fantastic racing action to look forward to at Kempton and Grands Crus seems very well at home and we are looking forward to seeing him in action in the Feltham Novice's chase at 2.00pm.  It is a very competitive race with Bobsworth and Silviniaco Conti both high class performers so fingers crossed for a great contest with our super grey coming out on top!

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