Eamon & Champers

       Champers On Ice runs at Newbury

Today is the start of the Ladbrokes Winter Festival at Newbury which is two days of top quality action and what a feast we have to look forward to.  The yard has two runners today, Eamon and Cnoic and Champers On Ice both ridden by Tom Scu.  Eamon runs in the 1.50pm handicap chase over 2m3f.  It looks fiercely competitive but we are hopeful of a good run.  He was an early departure at Cheltenham on his seasonal reappearance when Tom got unseated at the second fence but this is uncharacteristic and on the best of his form he looks to have a good each way chance with conditions in his favour.  Champers On Ice runs in the final race on the card, a handicap hurdle over three miles and it looks equally as competitive.  Champers won last time out at Ffos Las and it was fantastic to get him back to form.  He has some high class form to his name in his younger days but unfortunately had time off due to injury and this was his first win back.  He did it nicely that day, the softer the ground the better and although he has top weight in a more competitive race he looks to have a decent each way chance.  There are some great stars in action also on the card, with Champ and Paisley Park to name just two so it should be a great afternoon of action.

Unfortunately due to water-logging Doncaster have lost both days of their action which was scheduled for today and tomorrow.  This is particulalry bad for the track as this is the fourth meeting they have now lost in a row.  South Yorkshire has been hit with a lot of rain, like much of the country in recent weeks.  They have drafted in some experts to see if they can do anything to help the drainage of the course in the hope they can get back racing for their next fixture in December.  Another meeting lost this weekend is Leicester on Sunday.  We did have a couple of entries but the meeting failed it's inspection this morning and has been abandoned.  With Doncaster being called off today all the rest of the action is on the all-weather with flat meetings at Southwell and Kempton.  In Ireland they race at Limerick and Dundalk.  Another track who will be keeping their fingers crossed the weather does not disrupt the action is Newcastle.  They have the Fighting Fifth hurdle tomorrow but it is not rain but frost that could cause the damage to them.  They have frost covers down and fingers crossed temperatures do not dip quite as low as predicted.