Qulinton Crushes Plate Rivals!

What a great day for the yard on Saturday with Qulinton winning the Listed Summer Plate Chase at Market Rasen.  Our seven year old won by nineteen lengths and now looks as though he will be heading for the Galway Plate, for which he is as short as 8/1.  His owners are real racing enthusiasts, so the Irish had better be prepared as there will be some celebration over there were he to follow-up!  I know I keep singing the praises of our young conditional jockey Conor O'Farrell, but he is looking more the finshed article every time I see him ride.

Street Entertainer also ran with enormous credit in the Summer Hurdle to finish a close third.  When you consider that he is only a four year old and was shouldering top-weight on ground that probably went against him, he is clearly still on the upgrade and is a very useful young hurdler.

Vertige Dore fared best of our runners at Newton Abbot yesterday afternoon, finishing second behind favourite Tri Nations in the handicap hurdle.  This was his first start for the yard and there looks to be races to be won with him.

*****

What a great golf tournament we had for the British Open at Sandwich.  I was delighted to see Darren Clarke lift the trophy - he does not look like a superstar athlete, in fact you can imagine walking into your local pub and seeing him at the bar with a pint of Nigerian lager in his hand!  What about his manager, Chubby "Honey Monster" Chandler?...he should now be called The Money Monster!

Darren certainly played extremely well and has such an even temperment that he never looked fazed by it all - he looked more like he was on his local course on a Sunday morning.  Now we just need world number one, Lee Westwood to land a major - I am sure Darren's victory will help to establish some belief that he can do it too.