Big Occasion at Carlisle!

The stable has runners at Taunton and Wetherby this afternoon.  Clever Dick and Unex Degas participate at our local track and will be ridden by Paddy Brennan and Conor O'Farrell respectively, while Tom Scudamore makes the long trip up to Wetherby to ride Moose Moran and Alderluck.  Tom has been spending so much time up north lately (Ayr, Catterick, Carlisle and now Wetherby) that he will soon be speaking with a northern accent!

The stable has runners at Taunton and Wetherby this afternoon.  Clever Dick and Unex Degas participate at our local track and will be ridden by Paddy Brennan and Conor O'Farrell respectively, while Tom Scudamore makes the long trip up to Wetherby to ride Moose Moran and Alderluck.  Tom has been spending so much time up north lately (Ayr, Catterick, Carlisle and now Wetherby) that he will soon be speaking with a northern accent!

I thought that Big Occasion produced a good performance to win at Carlisle yesterday afternoon.  Our five year old jumped out and made all the running under 11-10 - to carry that much weight over 2m4 on testing ground was a really good effort.  Shaking Hands also performed with credit in the staying handicap chase...the horses continue in good form so roll on Cheltenham!

At home on the gallops I was able to get a nice picture of new recruit Katchmore in action on the gallops as he was working upsides Martial Law who has entries at Lingfield and Chepstow later in the week.

Above: (l-r) Katchmore and Martial Law on the Pond House gallops

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I see that Paul Nicholls has announced that a few of his horses have the cough.  I would imagine that that is the last thing he needed with Cheltenham just around the corner and it can be difficult to know if the horses are over it until they run.  Some people are making a big issue out of the fact that he has had only one winner this month, but remember we have lost loads of meetings to the weather so it is not really a fair reflection...Zarkandar was still able to land the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury last week, while a number of others performed creditably at the weekend.  Even so, he has cancelled his Cheltenham Press Day tomorrow, so he is obviously concerned.

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There is a great Champion's League match on Sky Sports 2 tonight at 7.45pm.  Napoli take on Chelsea and to me, Napoli look well worth a punt at odds of around 7/5.  Chelsea look like a team that are getting old.