It is a welcome drier start to the day here at Pond House and I was even scraping ice off my card windscreen!  Just 4.5mm of rain in the past 24 hours but surrounding areas have been hit quite badly by flooding but we have been pretty lucky.  It looks set to me dry for us today but rain returns tomorrow and by the look of it, quite a lot so we will have to prepare for the next deluge.  It is a quiet day on the racing front today with no jumps racing with Exeter called off on Monday and Leicester failing an inspection yesterday morning.  We are left with just one all-weather fixture today at Kempton and one in Ireland at Dundalk.  No runners for us today or tomorrow but hopefully we may be back in action on Friday.

Read more...

My journey into work this morning was a little better than anticipated after hearing the wind and rain bashing on my windows throughout the night!  Things aren't good locally on the roads but my route was luckily flood free.  I do believe there are two lanes shut on the M5 between Taunton and Wellington because of flooding so be careful if you are out on the roads this morning.  We have had 37mm of rain in the last 24 hours and considering it was a dry day yesterday up until at least 4pm that is a lot of rain to have fallen since then and we have definitely broken our January record rainfall.  

Read more...


        Eton Mes Winner at Uttoxeter 

I cannot believe it is Monday again, what a busy weekend it has been for myself, and enjoyable couple of days but I do wish day today was Sunday! More about that in a moment, but we begin the new week with two jumps meetings at Plumpton, Hereford and we have one runner at the latter, Royal Mer.

Read more...


   Jack Pipe is in Pony Race Action Today

It is a quieter Sunday on the racing front with one jumps meeting at Sedgefield and nothing on the flat in Britain.  There is a jumps card in Ireland at Naas which features a Grade 3 novices chase at 3.25pm.  This race looks a fairly open looking betting contest with the Willie Mullins trained Argento Boy just shading favouritism.  There was due to be jumps racing at Fontwell this afternoon and we probably would have had a runner, Pachacuti but the meeting was abandoned of Friday due to waterlogging.

Read more...


   Ocean Heights runs at Lingfield Today

There is some great racing today with ‘Trials Day’ at Cheltenham and also good cards at Doncaster and Uttoxeter.  There are two flat meetings at Lingfield and Newcastle and in Ireland they have jumps racing at Fairyhouse.  We have three runners today, two at Uttoxeter and Ocean Heights runs on the flat at Lingfield.

Read more...


        Not a Photo from this Morning!

There are two jumps meetings today at Doncaster and Warwick but the stable does not have any runners.  There are two all-weather cards at Southwell and Wolverhampton while in Ireland they just have a flat fixture at Dundalk.  The rain continues to fall at Pond House and we have had another 19mm of rain in the last 24 hours taking the total rainfall since Monday to 66mm with another wet day ahead for us and a lot of the country.  At the moment the winds are not too bad but I do believe they are set to get stronger over the course of the day so we will have to batten down the hatches!

Read more...

It has been very wet at Pond House in the last few days, we have had just under 50mm of rain this week so far and it looks set to continue for today.  It is probably a good job there was no race fixtures scheduled to take place locally to us this week as I am not sure they would have been on, Taunton would probably have been okay but I imagine even there might be soft this morning!  We are quite lucky at the yard with no flooding to report but having been keeping an eye on the news, not everywhere has been so lucky.  There are no problems for the two jumps meetings in Britain today, with some good cards at Huntingdon and Wetherby this afternoon.  The stable does not have any runners.  In Ireland, they have a good card at Gowran Park which has a Grade 2 hurdle and the Grade 3 Goffs Thyestes chase.  The track had to pass a 4.30pm inspection yesterday afternoon and I presume it is okay to race this morning.

Read more...