Kolisi Winner at Hereford

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          Kolisi - Winner at Hereford

It was great yesterday that Kolisi got his head in front for the first time over hurdles at Hereford with Tom Scu in the saddle.  Our four year old appreciated the better ground and this was his first run after a wind operation and both factors were key to an improved performance.  Tom Scu cut every corner and he travelled and jumped really well before hitting the front approaching the last.  He did not do a lot once he got to the front on the run in. pricking his ears, but he was always doing enough and it was a nice performance.  He wore headgear on the flat when trained by William Haggas and this maybe something we think about over hurdles in the future.  He is entered again at Taunton on Thursday and we will see how he is in the next couple of days before deciding if he runs here or not.  There should be more to come from this young horse and that will have done his confidence the world of good.  He is likely to have a run or two on the flat as well in the coming months.

Today there is just the one jumps meeting up at Kelso and none of our jockeys are in action.  There are also two meetings on the flat and Redcar and Windsor.  Well done to our conditional Fergus Gillard who had two winners over the weekend, one for Colin Tizzard at Chepstow on Saturday and then at Plumpton yesterday for Evan Williams.  At Plumpton yesterday all the jockeys wore pink britches as the whole day was run in aid of Breast Cancer, organised by Jamie Moore whose wife has thankfully now recovered from having it.  It sounds like the day was a great success and a lot of money was raised so well done to Jamie, Plumpton racecourse and the entire Moore family for all of their efforts for such a worthwhile cause.

Looking ahead to this week, we are of course counting down to Aintree and the big race itself, the Grand National on Saturday.  Officials at the course are going to have some tricky decisions to make in the coming days about watering the ground.  From the weather forecast it looks like they are going to be right in the middle of two weather bands, one which could give them a lot of rain, the other in which they could get none or very little.  Hopefully we won't get a similar scenario to what happened at Cheltenham on the Wednesday but on this occasion we, ourselves, probably won't mind too much.  We plan to run Remastered at Aintree on Saturday over hurdles and it cannot be soft enough for him!  It is however a tricky one for everyone at Aintree and they can only do what they think is best this week, as we all know, hindsight is a wonderful thing! A bit of natural rain would be best, let's just hope it comes sooner rather than later in the coming days so we all no what is happening!

Have a good Monday everyone.