Cheltenham morning and owner Mark Holland up here to see Spice Girl who has her first run at Cheltenham today – only her second start over hurdles after winning at Towcester last time out. She has a line of four wins to her name as she won her last three bumpers too but today is supremely competitive and we’d be thrilled if she ran a career best and managed to be placed.
Viking Mistress is giving our members of the Martin Keighley Racing Club the best end to their first year of membership – a runner at Cheltenham – wow, so incredibly lucky and we’ve got such a fabulous group of people in it that we hope she runs a blinder for them too. They have Champion Jockey Richard Johnson on board who won on her in the summer at Worcester and so what a day in prospect for them…some of them having their first ever Cheltenham runner and with the Champion Jockey on board – who could beat that?!
Thrilled Cheltenham is on and the weather has relented for us all. Huge thanks to my team here led by Jamie Goldstein for keeping the show on the road during the snow this week and to Ben Hastie and his Groundstaff team at Cheltenham (of which I used to be a part of many years ago!) for keeping the show on the road there too. It’s all these behind the scenes people that we all could not do without.