Veterans Final

  Ramses De Teillee Runs at Sandown Today

Today we have our first runners for a few days and our lorry will be setting off to Sandown very shortly with Ramses De Teillee and Poseidon on board. Ramses de Teillee runs in the valuable Veterans handicap chase final at 3.00pm with Tom Scudamore on board. This a great race introduced a few years ago to give the good older horses a chance to compete for a good prize without the younger legs getting in the way!! It is a race we won with a horse called Soll back in 2016 and we are hoping of a repeat success with Ramses this afternoon.

Our eleven year old made a scintillating seasonal reappearance to win at Warwick following wind surgery in November and qualify for this final, his first attempt in veterans races. David has kept him back fresh for this race and at home, they tell me he is ‘bouncing’ and ready for a run! The handicapper put him up five pounds for that win which looked fair enough and he is still ten pounds below his peak rating. Conditions will suit and we are hopeful of a big run from our popular grey. There is some interesting opposition however, including the Evan Williams trained Prime Venture who runs off the same mark he won this race off twelve months ago. Two hurdle runs this season so far might have put him spot on for this and I would rate him as the main danger although I wouldn’t swap our boy for anything.

Poseidon runs in the 3.35pm handicap hurdle over two miles with Fergus Gillard on board. He is making his stable debut after David bought him after he won the selling hurdle at Taunton last month. He has settled into life at Pond House well and carries the colours of the David Pipe Racing Club. While this obviously in much tougher than last time he has some high class form to his name and he is a multiple winner. He seems to go on any ground and I think he is too big a price and worth some each way money. Whatever happens today we will learn a lot more about him but hopefully he can run a big race.

It is a good card at Sandown and they have the Tolworth hurdle at 2.25pm. The Gary Moore trained Authorised Speed is the favourite but I have been very impressed by the Paul Nicholls horse Tahmuras in what I have seen. My vote goes to the latter but I think it will be a very good race.

Alongside Sandown there is also jumping action at Wincanton and Newcastle plus flat cards at Lingfield and Kempton and jumping in an Ireland at Cork. There are plenty of runners on the Wincanton card and David Noonan looks to have some more good chances of having a winner or two. He had a winner and a couple of seconds yesterday at Ludlow and so is a jockey in form. Philip Armson is also in action at the Somerset track.

Last night I went to the cinema to watch the latest Avatar film. It is quite long (3.5 hours) but it is well worth a watch. During the film I could sense my phone buzzing only for my Nan to leave me a message about the football…it said Man United were doing well but it was a bad tempered match!! I was delighted to look up the result and see we won 3-1!! The FA cup action continues today with plenty of third round matches being played. The 5.30pm kick off game is a Premier League team affair with Brentford and West Ham playing and at 8pm Liverpool are at home to Wolves. I will be cheering for my nans team - Wolves!

A physicist and a biologist had a relationship….but there was no chemistry!! Have a good Saturday!