Eamon at Taunton

Despite temperatures dropping to below freezing overnight in the west country we are pleased to report that racing at Taunton has passed its inspection and racing goes ahead.  Racing is also on at Ascot and Haydock as well and so there is some top class action to watch this afternoon.  Eamon An Cnoic is our only runner of the day and he goes in the 2.45pm seniors handicap hurdle with David Noonan on board.  He was disappointing when last seen in action at Cheltenham in November but returns to the smaller obstacles for the first time since 2018.  We are hoping to capitalise on his lower hurdle rating and he is right at the bottom of the weights in this competitive looking contest.  He is in very good form at home and won't mind conditions.  Fingers crossed he can show all his old sparkle and he looks a good each way price at 12/1.

I hope you all like the photo on the front page today and special thanks to Robyn Farmer for sending it in - she captured the wonderful sky setting over the yard last night and so I thought I would share to all of you as well!

With us all having to stay at home at the moment I think it is great we have some great sporting action to keep us entertained and today looks especially exciting.  Alongside the racing we also have some FA Cup football with Cheltenham Town FC hosting the mighty Manchester City and tomorrow we have a Liverpool, Manchester United re-match to name just two of the games.

The racing action gets underway at 12.40pm at Ascot with an interesting juvenile hurdle.  There are some nice horses with good form on the flat and fairly hefty price tags and the Alan King trained Tritonic is down as the even money favourite.  It will be interesting to see if there are any Triumph hurdle prospects emerging from this race.  The feature race at Ascot is the Clarence House chase at 3.35pm.  Reigning champion chase hero Politologue is favourite but he faces some stiff competition today.  Hopefully Defi Du Seuil can bounce back to form for the Philip Hobbs team while I think Waiting Patiently could be the main danger and I fancy him to win this race.  Another interesting race on the card in the Holloways hurdle at 1.50pm.  Our former stable favourite Lough Derg loved this race and kind of made it his own, winning it back to back in 2008 and 2009 before finishing third in the race in 2010 and 2011.  As the betting suggest it looks wide open this afternoon with the bookies just having the Henderson trained Janika as favourite.  He is a bit like Eamon An Cnoic this afternoon, returning to the hurdles off a lower rating than his chase mark so hopefully it can work for both he and Eamon!

There is some cracking races at Haydock as well this afternoon which features the return for former champion hurdle hero Buveur D'air.  He only has two rivals but they are good ones.  He should win but it will be interesting to see how good he looks after well over a year off the track.  Tom Scu has gone to Haydock today to ride the favourite of the Peter March chase, the Venetia Williams trained Royal Pagaille who has looked very impressive in two runs this season.  He has to carry top weigh in this contest but it looks hard to see past the favourite when trying to find the winner in this race - good luck Scu!

It is great that Taunton has the ITV cameras back at the track for a big race.  The Portman Cup at 2.10pm will be shown live on the channel.  Welsh National third Yala Enki heads the market and he won this race last year.  A repeat success could be on the cards for this veteran and Bryony Frost.

Enjoy all the action everyone from the comfort of your sofa's, I know I will!