Monday morning and no rain thankfully as we were pretty much washed out here at times yesterday. We had no runners but the roads around us were waterlogged much of the day. I was busy spiking the grass gallop so hopefully plenty of the rain got into that – I can never remember not being on the grass before the beginning of November before.
We had one runner at Wincanton on Saturday when HRH The Princess Royal’s homebred gelding Pattern Cutter made his racecourse debut under Sam Twiston-Davies with Borderline, our other intended runner, a non runner. Pattern Cutter, came to us last year for a couple of months but wasn’t ready to run so he went back home. He’s a bit off a worrier and therefore her groom, Katy Barr, who has worked hard on him, also brought him over from Gatcombe regularly before he came into full training here and rode him on his own here a couple of times most weeks to settle him in. He has since gone from strength to strength and I was pleased with his solid run into 5th place on Saturday with Sam hopeful he’s a horse that we can have a bit of fun with.
Looking ahead this week we are running Mr Mafia in a Conditional Veteran’s Chase at Huntingdon tomorrow, Found On goes for a Listed Novices’ Chase at Bangor on Wednesday and then we may have a runner each day at Cheltenham over the weekend so an exciting week ahead.