20 February 2017
With quite a few horses having had a break and the youngsters still not being ready to get to the racecourse, though there have been plenty of videos showing their progress, there have not been many horses ready to run, but that will all change soon.....
However, what has run has been going extremely well. We have only had five runners in the past week. A winner and two seconds is not a bad stat, though I did hope for a little better off the two unplaced horses. I was thrilled to have another winner for Gillian Morgan at Leicester. Barton Rose has been knocking on the door all season, but she broke her Maiden tag over fences in good style under a fine ride by Tom Bellamy. Tom has a great relationship with Gillian's horses and she is definitely Tom's Number one fan at the moment!!
Leith Hill Legasi was desperately unlucky at Towcester last Wednesday. Carrying over a stone more in weight than the eventual winner, she was just collared on the line. She deserves another win and she could easily be returning to the course in March. Also second was Treackle Tart yesterday at Market Rasen. On ground too soft and also over too sharp a trip she ran a very encouraging second. She will be winning before long in handicap company.
The two disappointments were old Pete the Feat and Castafiore. Pete did not actually run too badly and was a staying on fifth. He should have fallen at the first fence when he knuckled badly on landing. That slightly dented his confidence and he did not jump with his usual fluency afterwards. He will be back and I know there will be another race in him shortly. Castafiore was the biggest disappointment. I fully expected her to win, but she got very wound up in the preliminaries and never jumped a hurdle during the race. I will get her checked out at home and I am sure we will find a reason as that was nothing like the rest of her runs this season.
This will be another week with relatively few runners. Killala Quay will make his debut in the Veteran's series on Wednesday. He is going nicely at home, so I hope he can put in a better run than he has shown this season to date. Monty's Award has entries at Doncaster, Kempton and Southwell this week. We have taken our time with him after his impressive debut win and we will just work out which race looks the most suitable before deciding where to go. Also Justatenner is entered at Ludlow and Apple of Our Eye is in at Kempton this weekend. But they could be our only runners.....
Finally I bought a lovely Presenting youngster last Thursday who is from the same family as Snoopy Loopy.He is called The Real Snoopy and he won his point to point in Ireland a couple of weeks ago. He looks like a big raw horse at the moment who will make into a lovely staying chaser in time. He is FOR SALE, so please do not hesitate to give me a call. I know there are photos of him already on our Facebook and Twitter pages
