Icey At Newbury!

            Frosty start at Pond House

Today we just have the one runner at Newbury, Iceo Madrik.  All three jumps meetings today once again have morning inspections to see if racing can go ahead with temperatures dropping below freezing overnight.  The whole of the Newbury track was covered in fleece earlier in the week in an attempt to beat the freeze so hopefully they do!  Doncaster have the take offs and landings and vulnerable areas covered while I don’t think Musselburgh have anything on the track so we will just have to see what happens and keep our fingers crossed for some jumps action somewhere!

Iceo Madrik runs in the final race of the day at Newbury, the 3 mile handicap hurdle and Jack Tudor rides.  Our five year old came over from France in January and has two runs which were a little disappointing but then we did throw him in the deep end at the Cheltenham Festival.  He is a three time chase winner in France who will relish an even greater stamina test in time in testing conditions but it will be good to get him out today and see how he gets on.  He has summered well and had a wind op so hopefully he can run well in preparation for going back chasing following a confidence boost.  A lot of the horses that come over from France take a little time to adjust to life in England and there is plenty more to come from him after today.  He is a big price for this, a competitive handicap, at about 28/1.

Yesterday our three runners all ran okay at both Lingfield and Taunton.  Shot Boii jumped well in his first chase start and had every chance as five horses were in contention bypassing what would have been the final fence.  He finished fourth and will improve for the experience and I am sure he will have no problem winning over fences in the near future.  Lady Balko was just run out of fourth in the maiden hurdle at Taunton but it was a step forwards from her stable debut run at Exeter.  I thought Bashful Boy was going to win at Taunton at one stage but it was nice to see him bounce back to form over hurdles after he lost his confidence at Cheltenham last time.  He held every chance going to the last and kept going to be a close fourth.

There is no flat racing in Britain today but in Ireland they race on the all-weather at Dundalk this evening.  Hopefully Newbury will go ahead as well as our runners to look out for, there is the long distance hurdle which features Paisley Park, Dashel Drasher and Marie’s Rock and promises to be a cracking contest.  That race is at 3.00pm while in the 1.50pm novices chase, Hermes Allen makes his chasing debut in the Grade 2 contest.

Last night in the football West Ham 1- 0 Backa Topola and Liverpool 4 - 0 LASK. Tonight’s football action is from the Women’s game and England are in action at home to the Netherlands at 7.45pm in the Nations League.

I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon.

I’ll let you know!  Happy Friday!