Famous Five For Fact!

Obviously last week was a hugely important one with the Cheltenham Festival taking centre stage.  There is always a huge build up to this event and then it is all over in a flash!  Whilst we didn’t have a winner at the Festival, Night Edition was a close second and we bookended the week with winners at Taunton on Monday and Uttoxeter on Saturday.

It was a case of 13th time lucky over hurdles for Nordic Combined (pictured right) when our six year old scoring impressively in first time blinkers under amateur jockey Fergus Gillard at Taunton.  His owners Chris and David Stam have been very patient and it was great he got his first win in this sphere.  He is a flat winner who had some very good placed form over hurdles, although his first victory over timber had eluded him until this point.  We are now hoping his wins are like London buses as he heads to Haydock on Wednesday under a penalty in the hope of following up!

Famous Five For Fact

Our other winner last week was the incredible Main Fact (pictured top) who fairly bolted up in a valuable hurdle at Uttoxeter on Saturday.  Stepped up in trip to 2m4f for the first time since joining the Pond House team, he travelled supremely well under in-form amateur Fergus Gillard and quickly pulled clear of his rivals to win by an effortless 15 lengths, in the process notching his fifth success on the spin.   This was undoubtedly his best performance to date despite his reassessed rating of 132 and that looks sure to take another considerable hike when the ratings changes are announced tomorrow.  Who knows what the limit of his potential may be, but he clearly loves testing ground and is still thriving.  We will have to start looking for better races for him now before the ground dries up.

Cheltenham Festival 2020

We had a great time at Cheltenham, hosting our owners and racing club members in our hospitality marquee.  Racing television presenters Matt Chapman, Alex Hammond and Josh Apiafi were on hand to run through the card each day and I am very grateful to them for giving up their time to take a turn on the mic, although some of the tips were questionable to say the least…Chapman, I am looking at you!

Whilst runnerless on Tuesday, we had a great run from Night Edition to finish second in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle under Tom Scudamore on Wednesday.  He has done nothing but improve on each of his three starts over hurdles since joining the yard and improved again to finish a gallant runner-up from a mark of 133.  Held up early Tom produced him to challenge at the last and he battled all the way up the hill and was narrowly beaten.  He was a great value buy from the Arqana sales in France last summer.  There should be lots of fun and plenty more wins to come from him seeing as though he is only a four year old.

Unfortunately our two runners in the Champion Bumper did not run as well as hoped.  Both Israel Champ and Panic Attack disappointed for no obvious reason.  The good news is that they have both returned home safe and sound and we know they are both much better than they showed on Wednesday.  That will be it for Israel Champ this season and we can look forward to him going novice hurdling in the autumn.  Panic Attack did not really enjoy the testing conditions at Cheltenham and we may look to run her in the mare’s bumper at Aintree next month where the ground should be more to her liking.

On Thursday we just had the one runner, Poker Play in the Marsh Novices chase.  He ran okay for a 100/1 shot but was simply not good enough on the day.  On Friday Ramses De Teillee ran in the Albert Bartlett novices hurdles and ran okay to finish midfield.  Unfortunately the ground on the new course had dried out by the time of his race which did not really suit.  He still had every chance approaching 2 out but as some of his rivals quickened up he could not go with them on the quicker surface.  He is a thorough stayer and is still in the Grand National next month.  We will see how he is over the next fews days before we decide if he is likely to go to Aintree or not.  Umbrigado had a rough passage in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys race and was bumped around early on and then had traffic problems at a key point during the race.  He could never really get involved after that and there will be other days or him.

We had slightly fewer runners over the four days than we might have anticipated as several were balloted out of the races we would have liked to run in.  Last year appears to have been a one off when slightly lower rated horses were able to get into some of the races.  This time around you needed to be rated 140 or higher in most of the handicaps to be certain to get a run.  Eamon An Cnoic, Eden Du Houx, Main Fact and Remastered were all horses that may have run at Cheltenham had they managed to get in.  Instead they were in action at Kempton and Uttoxeter on Saturday.

We have a lot of nice young horses coming through for which Cheltenham was a year too soon.  Hopefully you will be seeing them at the 2021 Festival.

Racing’s Reaction to Covid-19

The Cheltenham Festival thankfully passed without disruption to racing from the Covid-19 virus but racing could be set for changes in the coming days.  Racing will take place behind closed door from tomorrow, whilst France have taken the measure of cancelling all racing until 15th April.  The sport will of course follow the advice of the experts and let’s just hope as a nation we can pull together and stop the spread quickly so life can return to normal.

Well done Margot!

Only last week we were talking about dynasties and the next generations coming through when we reported on Margot Scudamore and Lucas Murphy competing in pony racing.  It certainly didn’t take long for young Margot Scudamore to get into the winners’ enclosure as she was successful at Buckfastleigh yesterday on only her second ride.  Very well done to her.