9 February 2022
Guetapan Collonges, Goofy as he is known at home, grinds it out in very genuine fashion to get up on the line at Market Rasen under Will Kennedy. It is great to see this partnership win over fences for the second time and that is now their fourth win under rules. He is still to polish up his jumping, so we think there is more to come from this bonny little horse. Congratulations to his owner Mr JP McManus. We still remain near the top of the table for National Hunt trainer form over the last 14 days sorted by strike rate, according to Time Form, a statistic we love! Shah An Shah also put up an improved performance at Market Rasen back over hurdles under Johnny Burke. He jumped and travelled beautifully throughout the race and unfortunately just bumped into one better on the day. It was great to see his enthusiasm back and it looks as though the recent wind operation helped this.
No runners today, but it was a busy morning at Hull Farm. Will and Georgia left early this morning to take Saint Dalina to Shade Oak stud. She is due to be covered by Telescope. She has been a star mare for us and climbed up the handicap ladder last season. This also means she qualifies for the Elite NH Mares Scheme due to reaching a handicap mark of 130 in her career. This is a brilliant initiative that rewards the owners of mares proven on the racecourse at stud, and provides subsidised nominations to eligible British stallions, which ultimately provides and incentive to use the quality stallions provided here.
Train Hill and Largy Nights headed off to Adlestrop for a piece of work this morning. Both worked well and were pleasing to watch. It will not be long before we see these two out on the track. Paul was into ride out this morning, however we did not school anything. We cannot believe how quickly it has dried out, the schooling ground is far to quick again. Although, it is such a nice sight seeing all the horses back out in the field, certainly a rare sight in early February for sure! We try to turn as much of them out as possible, and they all enjoy it. Cheeky Jamacho also arrived back at Hull Farm yesterday, after being in pre-training. He looks fantastic, and will be sure to keep everyone on their toes.
Peter’s Portrait and Moon King are off to Doncaster tomorrow, Luca Morgan, and Sam Twiston Davies ride. On Friday Byzantium Lad has been declared for Bangor On Dee with Sean Quinlan steering and Alien Storm is to make his racecourse debut under Paul O’Brien at Kempton park. He has pleased us at home, so we are hoping for a positive start.
Entries on Saturday include Stroll On By at Newbury and Warwick, while Gaelic Park, The Mighty Arc and Carlow Farmer are also entered at Warwick. On Sunday Snow Leopardess is entered at Exeter, and Almazhar Garde along with Stroll On By hold entries for Catterick on Monday. Lingfield on Tuesday sees Byzantium Lad and Illegal Model entered up. Just Your Type was entered for the Eider chase at Newcastle yesterday on the 26th February.
Happy hump day and enjoy the rest of the week. The horses have been in only one rug the past couple of nights due to the unusually high temperatures for this time of year, although it is to get colder tonight.
