- Tuesday, 15 March 2011 07:05
- Written by Chester Barnes
The countdown is over and we have reached Day 1 of the Cheltenham Festival! We all went to the local pub last night, the Culm Valley. There were about 12 of us as we have some Irish friends staying at Pond House and it is been the same routine for the past 20 years! As you can guess, we were all picking out our winners for the Festival. It is easy to be bad mind you after 12 bottle of Becks! Not long to go now and the first race will be off. The roar that goes up as they jump off for the first race at 1.30pm is like that at no other sporting event. There will be lots of Irish over, many wearing big black and green guiness hats. David has a marquee for the week and the guiness tent is right by us so it tends to get very noisy! We have about 100 people in our Wigwam as owner Roger Stanley likes to call it everyday! Tom Scu and some of the other jockeys come in at midday and give a talk and pick their winners fourth day, well we know the horses that are not going to win anyway!
- Monday, 14 March 2011 00:00
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Here we have a videos of Grands Crus on the gallops and Mr Thriller schooling ahead of the Cheltenham Festival.
Grands Crus can be seen enjoying a gallop in preparation for the World Hurdle on Thursday.
Click Read More to watch these videos.
- Sunday, 13 March 2011 00:10
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Every racing fan must be getting really excited now as there is only one day to go until the start of the 2011 Cheltenham Festival - the best four days jump racing of the whole year. It must be a terribly worrying time for jockeys and trainers as they try to steer clear of any last minute injuries. I think that if I were a jockey, I would probably give up my rides today. If my horse had form figures that included any "F's" or "U's" next to it's name, it would certainly make me think twice. Having said that, I would never have been brave enough to be a jockey...I did not even like getting hit with a ping pong ball - no don't laugh, they can really sting!
- Sunday, 13 March 2011 00:00
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Mamlook was a good winner at Sandown yesterday under Danny Cook. It was great to see him return to winning ways after slightly dissapointing at Exeter last time out which can perhaps be explained by the ground being a little too soft last time. He travelled and jumped well and secured his second win over the larger obstacles. Mamlook is a fantastically versatile horse winning top races on the level and over hurdles and he now appears equally as good over fences. He is not entered at Cheltenham but could have an entry at Aintree as well as some of the top staying races on the flat over the summer.
- Friday, 11 March 2011 07:54
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
I was watching an interesting piece on Attheraces yesterday about racehorse owners and it featured Grands Crus' owner Roger Stanley. I was most amused about how he became interested in racing - he used to take his grandmother's bets and place them on his way to school. One day he decided to keep the bet and it turned out to be Baron Blakeney (who won the Triumph Hurdle at 66/1!) - I bet he had some explaining to do to his gran! That was back in 1981, so Roger has obviously known of the Pipe's for some time!
- Saturday, 12 March 2011 00:00
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Or Noir De Somoza - On the Gallops
Here we have a video of Grand National hope Or Noir de Somoza working on the gallops this morning as he continues his Aintree prepations. We will have more footage of our Cheltenham hopefuls here, so keep checking back!
Click Read More to watch the video.
- Thursday, 10 March 2011 08:02
- Written by Chelsea Morgan
Apparently there will now be less rain than originally anticipated ahead of next week's Cheltenham Festival - there is even the chance of some sunshine on the Tuesday and Thursday and the temperatures hitting a balmy 15°c. Let's hope that the ground does not get too quick otherwise they will be tempted to turn the taps on at Prestbury Park and that tends to make the ground dead. Personally I would like genuine good ground, that way everyone should be happy and there should be no excuses for anyone...roll on Tuesday!
