Katchmore A Cracker!

The stable enjoyed another winner yesterday when our only runner, Katchmore was successful at Exeter.  He defied a 7lbs penalty and the welter burden of 12-5, although his young jockey Tom Bellamy was able to claim 10lbs off his back as he works in the yard.  That is quite a chunk of weight to be able to take off and is a good incentive for trainers to use these young jockeys, especially when they are good value for it, such as Tom who is clearly very promising.  Katchmore was maintaining his unbeaten run since joining the yard, although things will get harder as the handicapper hit him hard for the first of his successes.  When you take Tom Bellamy's claim into account, he was actually 3lbs lower than when scoring at Taunton so hopefully the handicapper will not see fit to put him up anymore.

Above: Katchmore supplements his Taunton win with success at Exeter yesterday

The stable enjoyed another winner yesterday when our only runner, Katchmore was successful at Exeter.  He defied a 7lbs penalty and the welter burden of 12-5, although his young jockey Tom Bellamy was able to claim 10lbs off his back as he works in the yard.  That is quite a chunk of weight to be able to take off and is a good incentive for trainers to use these young jockeys, especially when they are good value for it, such as Tom who is clearly very promising.  Katchmore was maintaining his unbeaten run since joining the yard, although things will get harder as the handicapper hit him hard for the first of his successes.  When you take Tom Bellamy's claim into account, he was actually 3lbs lower than when scoring at Taunton so hopefully the handicapper will not see fit to put him up anymore.

We don't have any runners this afternoon as El Lobo, who was due to run in handicap chase at Haydock at 4.25pm is now a non-runner.

Katchmore's victory took the stable onto the 85 winner mark for the season which is a good achievement when you consider how compeititve the sport is nowadays - with the best part of six weeks remaining this season, that magic 100 is still very much an attainable goal.

*****

Following his excellent showing at the Cheltenham Festival it was interesting to see that Nicky Henderson moved to the top of the trainers championship for the first time this season.  It should certainly be an exciting fight between him and Paul Nicholls until the end of the campaign, although I would have thought that Henderson would have an abundance of ammunition to throw at his first championship since the 1986/87 season.

Personally, I still think that the trainer'schampionship should be settled by the number of winners trained, just as the jockey's title is decided by the number of winners ridden.  Only over here could we have two titles decided by different methods!