Four Runner Thursday!

Neon Moon - One of Four Stable Runners Today

Today we have four runners across two jumps meetings at Ludlow and Newbury.  Stray Bullet runs at Ludlow while our trio of runners at Newbury are Neon Moon, Only The Bold and Eden Du Houx.  Stray Bullet runs in the second race on the card, the juvenile hurdle at 12.50pm and David Noonan rides.  We are just hoping he can take another step forward from his last run at Wincanton.  After nearly falling at the first on debut at Chepstow and having a nasty experience he had a confidence boosting outing at Wincanton last time and completed.  He didn’t enjoy the heavy ground that day and will prefer today’s better conditions so hopefully he can take another step forward this afternoon.

Neon Moon kicks off our runners at Newbury and he runs in the 1.15pm novices handicap chase over 2m7f and Jack Tudor rides.  He was the impressive winner at Ludlow last time on his season reappearance and hopefully he can build on that today.  He is up six pounds in a competitive looking race but he is in good form at home and has run well at the track before.  I see he just shades favouritism in the betting and I hope they are right!

Only The Bold runs in the 2.25pm Pertemps handicap hurdle and Jack Tudor rides.  He had three runs for us last season and was the impressive winner of two staying chases on his first two starts.  He can be forgiven the last run when the trip was on the short side for him and he ground was quicker than ideal.  He is a horse David likes a lot at home and even though he is quite a big price in the betting at 20/1 and it is competitive race I wouldn’t put anyone off having a couple of pounds on him each way!  He is rated slightly lower over hurdles than fences and and fingers crossed he can run well.  He holds an entry in the valuable Fixed Brush Hurdle at Haydock later this month and providing he puts up a good show today, I think he is likely to go there next.   

Eden Du Houx is our final runner at Newbury and he runs in the 2m4f handicap chase at 3.00pm with Jack in the saddle.  You only have to look at his form figures to see he can be either very good or not quite so good with his last four runs reading 1P2P.  He is currently quite high in the handicap off 132 but he is in good form and very capable on his day.  The track and trip are perfect but any rain the falls will be in his favour.  It is another competitive race but at 10/1 he is another with a good each way chance.

Like yesterday, there are three jumps meetings today as well as Ludlow and Newbury they race up North at Sedgefield. In Ireland they have jumping at Clonmel while there is all-weather action at Chelmsford this evening as well. 

Yesterday both of our horses ran well in their respective races.  I thought Gearoid Harney gave King Turgeon a lovely ride and he narrowly failed to beat the favourite, finishing second, only beaten ¾ length and the pair pulled well clear of the rest.  Our five year old jumped extremely well and kept galloping all the way to the line.  He revels in the mud and will give his owners, Somerset Racing a lot of fun this winter in staying chases.  Pachacuti also ran a nice race on chasing debut at Warwick.  On the whole he jumped very well but a novice mistake at the third last fence seemed to knock the stuffing out of him.  To his credit however, he got back galloping and stayed on strongly to the line, passing horses that had over taken him after three out.  While the clear leader unluckily fell at the last our fella kept battling to the line to finish a close second.  It was a pleasing start to his chasing career and I am sure he can build on this next time.

Last night in the football...let's not talk about it!  Well done to Arsenal who were 2-0 winners at home to Sevilla but Manchester United lost 4-3 away at FC Copenhagen.  Bad times for United, enough said!

Tonight it is the return of Europa League action and West Ham are in action at home to Olympiakos at 8pm while Liverpool are away to Toulouse in the early kick off of 5.45pm.

Did you hear what happened to the wooden car?  It wooden go!  Have a great day!