Great New Year's Day!

What a great start to 2011 for the stable with the horses running well on Saturday.  Ashkazar led home a 1, 2, 3 for David in the 3 mile handicap hurdle at Cheltenham, carrying top weight of 11st12lb.  He stayed on very nicely up the hill on his first try at 3 miles under Timmy Murphy to finish just in front of Junior and Chartreux who both ran fine races.  Ashkazar has always been a top class horse and at 20/1 I wish I had a few pennies on him, I actually backed the other two each way so did not do any damage!  I'msingingtheblues was a good fourth in the Victor Chandler handicap chase over 2m5f.  He had every chance jumping the last fence but did not finish quite as fast as the others up the hill, nevertheless it was a super run.  

Meanwhile at Exeter the horses also ran well with Hunterview returning to form and finishing a good third and Horsford finishing second.  I am sure both of these will be winning in the future.  Spanish Cruise returned from a long absence and won on his debut for Pond House by 1/2 a length, although it looked a lot closer on the telly!  The race was not without drama however as Spanish Cruise jinked violently to the left as the tapes went up and nearly unseated jockey Danny Cook.  In fact Danny jumped the first flight of hurdles with no irons so he did very well to win in the end!

There was also drama at Exeter for Jockey Tom O'Brien who rode a double but was also banned for 12 days for running through the rails off the inside of the track halfway up the run in.  O'Brien had no excuse as he rode the winner of the first race and I think he got off lightly with just a 12 day ban.

The stables good form continued yesterday at Plumpton with great runs from both Master Overseer and Peut Etre Sivola in the Sussex National.  They were second and third respectively and they both look like they will be winning staying chases in the near future.  It was particularly pleasing to see Master Overseer run so well as he has not been seen on the track since winning the same race 12 months ago.  I am please to report that racing today goes ahead at Hereford and Ayr, while they are taking another look at Lingfield at 9am so keep an eye out for results of that inspection.  David has no runners today but the stables next action could be at Ludlow, Bangor and Fontwell later in the week.