Cheltenham Treble!

What an incredible day for the yard yesterday with an amazing treble on the first day of Cheltenham's three day Open Meeting, starting with a winner for seventeen year old amateur Tom Bellamy aboard dashing grey Swing Bill and culminating with a fantastic success for stable star Grands Crus on his chasing debut.

What an incredible day for the yard yesterday with an amazing treble on the first day of Cheltenham's three day Open Meeting, starting with a winner for seventeen year old amateur Tom Bellamy aboard dashing grey Swing Bill (pictured left) and culminating with a fantastic success for stable star Grands Crus on his chasing debut.

I think that at this stage of their careers, ten year old Swing Bill knows more about racing than young Tom Bellamy and he gave our amateur jockey a great ride round on his first mount at the home of National Hunt racing to start the ball rolling.  Tom's father Robert worked at Pond House many years ago...I say worked, it was more a case of looking around for things not to do!  I am only joking really Robert (or am I?)!

I'msingingtheblues finished a highly creditable third under topweight in the following handicap chase - time may prove that this was a high class performance attempting to concede 5lbs to the winner Tanks For That.

Decoy (pictured right) notched the second leg of the treble in the conditional jockey's handicap hurdle under an opportunistic ride from leading conditional Conor O'Farrell who was replacing Tom Molloy.  He stole a clear advantage running down the hill and was doing just about enough to hang on from the fast finishing Semi Colon in a photo-finish.  He has been gelded since his last start and the application of blinkers certainly appeared to do the trick.

The icing on the Cheltenham cake certainly came in the finale, the much anticipated novices' chase which featured a clash between World Hurdle runner-up Grands Crus and former Festival Bumper winner Cue Card.  Sadly for the crowd they were robbed of the match when Cue Card parted company with Joe Tizzard shortly after halfway, however Grands Crus jumped and travelled impeccably (with the exception of one mistake four out) and scored as he liked under Tom Scudamore - it would certainly have taken a good one to beat him.  For a horse that stays three miles, he possesses plenty of speed and that certainly gives David plenty of options over the coming months.

Grands Crus makes the perfect start to his chasing career at Cheltenham yesterday

We have five runners today at Cheltenham in three races, including Great Endeavour in the highlight of the meeting The Paddy Power Gold Cup.  With two greys winning for us yesterday, let's hope that Great Endeavour can make it another grey day!

David's column starts today in the Racing Post and he is pictured in a suit and tie...I almost thought that it was an old picture of Monty Python star John Cleese for a moment!  I thought I had better get in there with that one first as I am sure it is only a matter of time before he has a pop at me in his column!