An Early Start!

What a great card at Cheltenham this afternoon, it wouldn't look out of place at the Festival in March!  The race I am most looking forward to is the 3.05pm which features a clash between Cue Card, Menorah and Silviniaco Conti - all three wouldn't look out of place in a Champion Hurdle and all have big reputations to uphold so something has to give here.  Don't forget that it's an early start too, with the action getting underway at 11.40am.  Allow plenty of time if you are going - the traffic is likely to be heavy as there hasn't been much racing and jumps fans will be getting withdrawal symptoms!

I hear that Huntingdon wouldn't be able to race at present so there has to be a question mark over tomorrow's meeting.  The overnight forecast is a little more encouraging with temperatures expected to reach 6°c.  It's another very good card, so let's hope that it gets the go-ahead.

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I had one of those days yesterday when everything went wrong!  I backed Spirit River in the first at Cheltenham and the Henderson trained five year old never jumped a fence - I would think that he would be going back down the hurdling route in due course.  I was also told to back 8/1 winner Lush Life but didn't and to compound matters, tried to get out on Al Ferof in the last who fell when clear 2 out!  It goes like that some days, I will just hope for better luck this afternoon.  Of the stable runners, I thought that Shoegazer ran a promising race and he looks more than capable of scoring, especially when stepping up in trip.

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Although the weather has been inclement over the last week or so, it has not stopped us at the yard and below are a couple of interesting pictures of some of the horses schooling indoors.  The first is of I'm So Lucky schooling under Tom Scudamore, and the other is of French import Kazzene loose schooling.

  
Above left: I'm So Lucky and right: Kazzene