Chepstow Abandoned

Today, all being well we have just the one runner at Chepstow, Barrier Peaks but the meeting does have to pass a 7.30am inspection for racing to go ahead.  Fingers crossed it does and then hopefully we have a good chance of a winner in the final race on the card, the 4.10pm handicap hurdle over 2m3f.  Barrier Peaks won for the first time in his career at Exeter last Tuesday when stepped up in distance for the first time.  He did it nicely beating a horse chasing a four timer and the pair were nicely clear of the field.  He runs today under a seven pound penalty and is effectively three pounds ‘well in’ this afternoon as the handicapper is going to raise him ten pounds in the future.  He won’t mind the conditions which will be testing and we are hopeful of a big run with Tom Scu on board once again.

There are plenty of runners on the Chepstow card throughout the afternoon with competitive action in every race.  There is also racing on the all-weather at Kempton and Southwell and in Ireland they race at Clonmel over jumps.  There is an 8.30am inspection at Newbury this morning ahead of their meeting tomorrow.  We are due to have two runners there tomorrow, Heure De Gloire and Royal Defender so fingers crossed it may go ahead.  I imagine even if they do pass this inspection there could be another scheduled for race day morning.  We are also due to have two runners at Plumpton tomorrow where they do have the frost covers down so things look a little more promising there and there are no inspections planned at present.

Unfortunately the Fontwell card was lost to waterlogging yesterday so we just had the one runner, Pachacuti at Hereford.  He put up a much better showing than on his seasonal reappearance to be a close second.  Things got a little tight on the run in between the winner and ourselves which was a little frustrating as I think he may have won with a clear run.  That is race riding however and even though there was a stewards enquiry the result stood and it was nice to see our fella show a lot more.  I think a further step up in distance could bring about even more improvement but I don’t see why he can’t win a similar contest next time.

There is some football action this evening as the FA Cup third round replays are being played.  The pick of the games looks to be Wolverhampton Wanderers against Liverpool kicking off at 7.45pm.  I will be cheering for my Nan’s team, Wolves again, especially after they were knocked out of the EFL Cup last week on penalties.  While Liverpool are not playing that well at the moment I am fearful for Wolves that Liverpool will be out to prove a point this evening and may come out all guns blazing.  It should be a good game.  In Sunday’s football action which I didn’t mention yesterday, it was another good win for Arsenal over Spurs and cements their place at the top of the table.  They are looking very good and I think they will go on and win the League.  There is always a bit of rivalry between our staff when the football is on, Neve (an Arsenal supporter) had bragging rights over Ashley (Spurs supporter) in the yard yesterday morning as I did over Martin Ayliffe, a Manchester City supporter!  It is all good fun!

Why did the chicken go to the gym?  To work on his pecks!  Have a good Tuesday!