A Good Day's Racing Ahead

It has been a cold night and it is certainly crisp this morning as you can see from the picture of the gallops.  Wetherby have obviously suffered from the dropping temperatures and have had to abandon this afternoon's fixture, while Kempton are holding a second inspection at 10am ahead of their Lanzarote fixture.

It looks like a typically competitive Saturday afternoon's racing and the yard is represented at Kempton and Warwick with plenty of runners.  Tom Scudamore will be aboard Decoy, a winner at Cheltenham on his penultimate start is favourite for the Lanzarote hurdle at Kempton where he is joined by dual Festival winner Buena Vista - it is a twenty runner handicap and the bookies will bet a big price the field.  Dream Esteem is our other runner at Kempton and she makes her seasonal reappearance after a break of around 300 days - she was running consistently well when last seen and will be partnered by Tom Scudamore.

It has been a cold night and it is certainly crisp this morning as you can see from the picture of the gallops.  Wetherby have obviously suffered from the dropping temperatures and have had to abandon this afternoon's fixture, while Kempton are holding a second inspection at 10am ahead of their Lanzarote fixture.

It looks like a typically competitive Saturday afternoon's racing and the yard is represented at Kempton and Warwick with plenty of runners.  Tom Scudamore will be aboard Decoy, a winner at Cheltenham on his penultimate start is favourite for the Lanzarote hurdle at Kempton where he is joined by dual Festival winner Buena Vista - it is a twenty runner handicap and the bookies will bet a big price the field.  Dream Esteem is our other runner at Kempton and she makes her seasonal reappearance after a break of around 300 days - she was running consistently well when last seen and will be partnered by Tom Scudamore.

We have a handful of runners over at Warwick - Roi de Rose runs in the two mile handicap chase, while Water Garden will be bidding for the hat-trick in the Pertemps Qualifier.  We will be represented by Sona Sasta Hadden Frost and Faasel (Conor O'Farrell) in the valuable Grade 3 Classic Chase over 3m5f - Faasel has finished runner-up at two Cheltenham Festival's and in the Bet365 (formerly Whitbread) at Sandown since arriving at Pond House and he richly deserves to land another race of this nature.  It looks like an entertaining but tricky day's racing.

*****

The stable had one runner at Huntingdon yesterday and Clever Dick looked a slightly unfortunate runner-up.  He was only just beaten by Hohlethelonely and if he had jumped teh last couple of flights a little better I think he would probably have won.  Even so, he looks like a winner waiting to happen so long as the handicapper does not over-react.  The winner could well turn out again at Southwell on Wednesday and would escape a penalty as his win came in a boys' race - he would be of real interest if running again.

*****

I was interested to see that Barry Geraghty said that if he could have given his horse Problema Tic one more smack with the whip at Huntingdon yesterday he would have won.  Mind you, as he was riding the 1/4 favourite, it could be argued that he should have won anyway!  It certainly wasn't the best of day's for the Henderson-Geraghty combination (or those people who like to "buy" money") with 1/4 and 1/5 losing favourites.

*****

I'm looking forward to another good day of football action and will be having a little treble on Liverpool, Newcastle and West Brom.