- Monday, 03 December 2012 16:20
- Written by David Pipe
What a great weekend with the yard enjoying a double courtesy of Weather Babe and Junior on Saturday. Junior was making a triumphant seasonal return when winning the Rehearsal Chase under Conor O’Farrell at Newcastle. The young Irishman gave our nine year old an excellent ride to make all the running on very testing ground under topweight. I was particularly pleased with his foot perfect round of jumping as he took lengths out of his field at each fence. I would imagine we will have to look at one of the staying handicaps at the Festival come March, while the Grand National is still a long-range possibility.
- Monday, 26 November 2012 15:35
- Written by David Pipe
I don’t think that I have ever seen downpours like we have experienced during the last seven days. During that time 136mm of rain (or nearly 6 inches!) has fallen on Pond
House and it has been plenty worse in many other areas of the south west. In the surrounding areas we have witnessed localised flooding with rivers bursting their banks and there have been countless homes and businesses underwater and I do feel terribly sorry for them.
- Monday, 19 November 2012 16:14
- Written by David Pipe
What a thrilling three days of action at the Cheltenham Open meeting and I was delighted with the form of the stable runners throughout the course of the meeting. For the second successive year we finished up with a very satisfying four winners, while a number of other runners also performed creditably to fill the frame. I was also delighted to end up as top trainer at the meeting, given the rich tradition of success that the stable has enjoyed at this fixture down the years.
- Monday, 12 November 2012 14:43
- Written by David Pipe
It was a great end to the week for the stable when The Package landed a long overdue big race success when winning The Badger Ales Chase at Wincanton on Saturday. He has always been a quality horse but has often narrowly missed out on the big occasion having twice finished in the frame in handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival - it was to be his day on Saturday however.
- Monday, 05 November 2012 15:52
- Written by David Pipe
Although we were unable to match the feats of the previous weekend, there were still some noteworthy performances from the stable’s runners at Ascot on Saturday. The racing was fiercely competitive and I was pleased with the runs of War Singer (fourth) and Street Entertainer (fifth) in the Listed William Hill handicap hurdle. The pair of them were beaten a smidge over two lengths and look well capable of winning nice races over timber over the coming months.
- Monday, 29 October 2012 17:03
- Written by David Pipe
Gevrey Chambertin
Well what a fantastic weekend for the yard! A treble on Saturday followed by two winners on Sunday and it is just great to have the yard in such good form. What has made in even nicer is that on Saturday the winners at three different meetings, ridden by three different jockeys for three different owners! On Sunday Tom Scu doubled up on the winner’s front but our other winner was for another of our young conditionals, Tom Bellamy. It is great for the yard that we have several talented riders and there is a lot of happy staff in work this morning! I am pleased to report all of our weekend runners are fine and have come out of their races okay.
I went to Aintree on Saturday and it was great to see Gevrey Chambertin get off the mark at the first attempt over hurdles. Well I say hurdle race, for those of you who may have seen the race they in fact only jumped three of the intended nine flights of hurdles as the ones in the home straight were omitted due to the low sun. This would not have suited our four year old and I think he won despite how the race turned out. He had a hard fought battle with Many Clouds up the straight and it was nice to see him getting on top towards the line. The front pair pulled a little way clear of the rest so I think the form should work out fairly nicely and I am sure the runner up will be winning over hurdles very soon. We will probably keep Gevrey low key for his next run before raising the bar the slightly after that.
- Monday, 22 October 2012 15:50
- Written by David Pipe
It was a good week for the yard last week with three winners courtesy of a double at Wetherby on Wednesday and a Cheltenham success on Saturday. I Shot The Sheriff made a most pleasing debut for the stable at Wetherby and was a welcome success for owner Malcolm Denmark who has an increased string at Pond House this term.
I Shot The Sheriff had won a Southwell bumper for former trainer Warren Greatrex before finishing well beaten in a more competitive contest at Ascot. He had been schooling nicely at home and it was great to translate that into a victory on his first start over timber. He travelled supremely well and did not need to be asked a serious question to beat a useful rival in Irish raider Liberty’s Gift. He will have learned plenty for this experience on only his third career start and he looks to be an exciting prospect for the season ahead.
