Four runners tonight at Southwell kicking off with Mr Mafia (Richard Johnson) in the 3 mile Handicap Chase. He won four races for us over hurdles last summer and hasn’t been helped by the Handicapper but is lower over fences due to just one win in that sphere so far. He tries his best every time and deserves to get his head back in front not least because he’s my son Harry’s favourite and it’s his 9th birthday today. Both Harry and Freddie are performing in their school play whilst he is running unfortunately so neither them nor their mother will be able to watch. No pressure though Richard…..!
Our next runner is Gold Mountain (Leighton Aspell) and he has run well on both starts for us despite not troubling the judge either time. We are hopeful he can build on this in what does look a competitive 2 mile Handicap Chase. Fairmount (Conor Shoemark) is our next runner over hurdles returning after 18 months off. He will definitely come on for the run but we’ve done all we can at home and he is ready to run having not been risked last time due to the ground.
Finally Bobble Emerald (Leighton Aspell) runs in the 2m 4f Handicap Hurdle and needs to put some disappointing runs behind him. He seems well though and it would be fantastic if he bounced back to some sort of form aged 11 as he is a real favourite in the yard.
Thank you very much to David Gerrard who so kindly sent the boys presents yesterday and a lovely letter too – he’s also a Manchester City fan so Harry received a 2018/2019 first team shirt and Freddie has been lucky enough to receive a smart set of his colours – with room to grow into! We are glad you enjoy the Blog and our social media updates David, very kind of you.
Finally …. Happy Birthday again to our 9 year old Harry – good luck to both of them in the play – ‘Pantastic’, a twist of Peter Pan where Freddie is Slightly & Harry is a pirate. Great reports from yesterday’s show but both of them assure me a career on the stage does not becon!!