A busy day with runners at two meetings as long as Hereford survives it’s morning inspection. Foxtrot Racing, owners of our impressive Chepstow winner Witness Protection, sponsor the whole card at Hereford so we really hope it passes it’s inspection. Samtara runs there too for Roger & Yvonne Allsop and, with Patrick Cowley who rode him last time out injured, Gavin Sheehan has come in for the ride. He’s in good form and I’m hopeful he improves again on his 2nd place last time. I’d love to train the Allsop’s a winner as they are so supportive of our yard and racing in general too.
Across at Doncaster we have three runners with Dreamsundermyfeet kicking of proceedings at 12.30pm under Lilly Pinchin in a race confined to Conditional Jockeys. Dreamsundermyfeet makes his handicap debut and has been a slow burner, taking a lot of time to mature. He looks a different horse this year and, whilst his future will undoubtedly be over fences, we are hoping he can be competitive in his grade over hurdles too.
Big Nasty (James Best) was a solid 3rd on his seasonal debut at Wetherby in December for the Peel Racing Syndicate headed by Will Kinsey. He’s a lovely big horse and seems very well at home. James has ridden him before and knows him well and we are hopeful of a big run although we will very much miss his enthusiastic syndicate being on the racecourse with us. But we are racing so we are very grateful for that.
Found On is our final runner and she’s a mare I really like. She won impressively in heavy ground at Leicester last time and I think, for once, the Handicapper has been generous with her mark of 115 but…we will see and time will tell! She’s very well at home and Belinda, who rides her most days, and James Best who rides her in her work, have both said she is desperate for a run! She’s missed Cheltenham on New Years’ Day and Ludlow too so 3rd time lucky?!
With the ground frozen we’ve not been able to turn horses out for a week or so and therefore yesterday I decided to ride a couple of lots out and the whole team offered to come in and ride out which was briliant. Most of them don’t want to give up the rides on their favourite horses! We also had Harry Stock and Fergus Gregory in to ride out.