Thrilled….& relieved! A winner at last! Well done to the whole team and especially Jon Hughes & Torben Dal. A winner is always a huge team effort and we did think we’d got him in great form – Hannah Ashton, one of our physios, has been working hard on the muscles in his back using her fabulous Indiba machine, Warren Marston has ridden him in some of his recent fast work and was pleased with him and the team here have all played their part.
But win he did and by a fair distance too given a good ride by Richard Johnson who dropped him in (after consultation with James Best who has ridden him before but was at Wincanton on Ben Buie) and smoothly hit the front two out and eventually did it very nicely indeed. Very happy.
Back On The Lash jumped for fun on his chasing debut and jumped the last upsides in front but just failed to find more and was beaten into 3rd but no disgrace as I think it will work out to be a decent race. Richard was very pleased with him too and feels we do need to step him up in trip over fences now but a superb introduction and worth the crazy early start. Beth & I were back in the yard by 9pm.
Ben Buie was in the process of running a lovely race for James Best at Wincanton but didn’t pick up when he should have two out and stepped at the hurdle giving James no chance at all of staying on board. Frustrating but thankfully James and Ben live to fight another day.
Today we head to Fakenham with Eclat Des Mottes (James) in the 2m 4f Handicap Hurdle. He’s admittedly been disappointing since joining us which is a shame as he is a bonny horse at home and we were hoping he would enjoy being part of a smaller team. He’s been pulling everyone’s arms out for the past couple of weeks including part owner Chris Dee who rides out here when she can. He doesn’t know he’s 50-1 and we are hoping he runs better than his price suggests! Here’s hoping!