Schooling Morning

              Horses on Holidays!

The flat racing takes centre stage today with five meetings at Brighton, Carlisle, Haydock, Pontefract and Yarmouth.  There is flat racing in Ireland at Fairyhouse and an all hunter chase card at Stratford this evening.  David does not have any runners today but Dell'arca runs at Cartmel tomorrow.  Ranco ran well to finish fourth at Worcester yesterday, he had every chance jumping the last and kept going to finish fourth and was only beaten 2.5 lengths.  He jumped well returned to hurdling and will probably be seen to even better effect on a bit sharper track like Newton Abbot or Stratford next time.  He will not mind the ground being even quicker as well.  

Percy Street was a little disappointing for no obvious reason, travelling well turning for home he could never really quite get into it.  We know he is better than this and he has plenty of ability so hopefully he can bounce back to form next time out.

Tom Scu is here at Pond House riding out this morning and we are putting some of our new recruits through their paces.  All have settled in well and Doncaster purchase Seventeen O'Four was schooled over hurdles and has taken to obstacles very well.  We have only had him a week but he has done lots in the loose school and jumping over logs and barrels etc which is what we do with all of our young horses learning to jump.  Tom has schooled him and new French recruit Koi Dodville over hurdles this morning.  He is a lovely three year old we claimed recently after he finished second on the flat at Saint Cloud and he will be aimed at juvenile hurdles this summer.  He has also taken to jumping very well and both horses could be seen in action on the racecourse very soon.

I am a keen follower of point to point racing and hunter chases and I shall be tuning in to watch Stratford this evening although it is a little disappointing there are not more representatives from the west country taking part.  However, with a point to point at Bratton Down in North Devon tomorrow and then another one on Monday at Upcott Cross I am sure many of the local point to point trainers will be saving their horses for these meetings.  The champion novices hunter chase, the John Corbett Cup is at 6.20pm and Fumet D'oudairies is the even money favourite trained by Tom Ellis and ridden by Jack Andrews but I think they face some tough opposition from Premier Magic and Bradley Gibbs and also the Irish raider Vaucelet.  I think my vote goes to Premier Magic.  The Horse and Hound Cup is at 6.55pm and looks a close betting match between the Paul Nicholls trained duo of Bob and Co and Adrian Du Pont.  I think there is not much between them and it should be a good battle and a good watch.

Good luck to Jack, Sophie & Martha who are doing their school swimathon raising money for charity today.  I know they have set high targets for how many lengths they can swim as Grandad Pipe as sponsored them a £1 a length!! It will be interesting to hear how they get on.

Thieves broke into a police station and stole all the toilets.  Police say they have nothing to go on!! Have a nice day!