Ten Of The Best!

I was looking through the Racing Post yesterday at AP's ten best rides and four of them were aboard horses that were trained by MCP.  I hate to argue with the great man, but I have to say that I think the ride that he gave Deano's Beeno when he outsmarted Thierry Doumen aboard Baracouda had to be one of the best that I have seen - he stole a long lead and the French raider was never quite going to get back to him.  Although not his favourite success, AP picks out his ride aboard Pridwell as his best race ride.  The pair beat the mighty Istabraq at Aintree - now Pridwell was a real character, but he had masses of ability and on this day McCoy managed to coax it all out of him to deny the triple Champion Hurdle winner.

What about Family Business at Southwell?  AP was unseated from him early in the race, but as he watched his opponents one by one part company with their riders the champion jockey decided to find his partner, remount and finish alone!  It was an amazing effort and something we are never likely to see again as remounting has since been disallowed.  It must have been a difficult top ten for the champ to compile, afterall with over 3,000 winners to choose from, there has been no end of rides worthy of inclusion.

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I see that legendary arrowsmiths Eric Bristow and Keith Deller are appearing at Doncaster races next Saturday.  They would struggle to beat me as while they can only manage 180 with their three darts, I could score 1080 - I would simply throw a hedgehog at the board!  Anyway, Keith used to perform exhibitions at Pontins back in the days when I was playing table tennis there - he's a really nice bloke and has been to visit us at the yard a few times.

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I have to hand it to David, in this ever more technical age he is really embracing the modern methods of communication more than any other trainer that I know.  Not only has he revamped his website which includes all of the latest news from Pond House (on a daily basis), there is also a weekly column from the trainer himself.  However, did you know that you can also keep in touch by following him on Facebook and Twitter?  To find out more, simply click on the appropriate banner on the left hand side of this page.  If you have any ideas for our website or social networking sites, please feel free to drop us a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.