Autumn is here – it’s pretty blowy and wet out there this morning, although mild, and Bangor changed from the sunshine we enjoyed on Tuesday to pretty constant rain on Wednesday and now Wrexham is into lockdown….
Capricia ran a belter to finish 5th on her second run over hurdles and appreciated the step up in trip. She’s such a willing mare with a very likeable attitude and hopefully will be given a handicap mark now. Cotswold Prince is getting frustrating as we have done so much work at home over the summer to ensure he is as physically strong as possible but his head doesn’t seem to be in it at the moment. Back to the drawing board.
City Never Sleeps is another who is so genuine and loved the ground and jumped for fun on his second run over fences. He did jump out to his right a couple of times but Max Kendrick was sure that was just him putting himself right in the testing conditions. With a better jump at the last he’d probably have held onto 2nd but the winner was thrown in and we were pleased with 3rd. There are surely races to be won with him.
We were undecided about running Black Panther in the worsening conditions as he’s bred to appreciate far better ground but we eventually decided to let him take his chance – he had an intelligent jockey on board in James Best who would look after him and there was also a chance he may have gone in the ground on only his 2nd start. He didn’t, he hated it. He also had a problem with his breathing which explained the hugely disappointing run and he’s booked in to go to wind expert Ben Brain next week to investigate.
Nothing now until maybe Uttoxeter on Sunday. The rain changing the ground at plenty of courses where we were heading over the next few days so lots of calls to Clerks of Courses!
Great to have Big Nasty back from Will Kinsey and his team at Peel Racing on Wednesday. He looks to have almost grown even more and he was huge when he returned there! Unsurprisingly he looks an absolute picture and he’s one I very much look forward to a fun Winter with.