Cracking Treble!

It was another good day for the yard yesterday with an across the card treble with Mr Chow and Arab League scoring at Taunton, and Tamarinbleu winning at Haydock.  I thought that it was a great performance from our evergreen veteran Tamarinbleu who celebrates his twelfth birthday tomorrow to carry topweight of 11-12 around there in that ground.  It was an amazing ride from Timmy Murphy and he reminds me of a vintage bottle of wine that keeps getting better with age - it was a real masterclass in how to coax one home.  These veteran's races are a great idea - the crowds love to see these old warriors do battle and it gives them good opportunities to get in the winners' enclosure again - the winning prize-money of £11,000 is not to be sniffed at either!

It was another good day for the yard yesterday with an across the card treble with Mr Chow and Arab League scoring at Taunton, and Tamarinbleu winning at Haydock.  I thought that it was a great performance from our evergreen veteran Tamarinbleu who celebrates his twelfth birthday tomorrow to carry topweight of 11-12 around there in that ground.  It was an amazing ride from Timmy Murphy and he reminds me of a vintage bottle of wine that keeps getting better with age - it was a real masterclass in how to coax one home.  These veteran's races are a great idea - the crowds love to see these old warriors do battle and it gives them good opportunities to get in the winners' enclosure again - the winning prize-money of £11,000 is not to be sniffed at either!

Mr Chow follows-up in emphatic style at Taunton

At Taunton, Mr Chow again looked like a promising young staying chaser in the making when demolishing his rivals by twenty lengths.  He was 9lbs higher when winning at the track last time out and another hike in the weights looks assured after this performance.  He holds entries for next week so I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to see him turned out again under a penalty.

Another wide margin winner was Arab League who landed the concluding conditional jockey's handicap hurdle by eighteen lengths.  I was very pleased for winning jockey Frank Hayes who was enjoying his first success over obstacles (although he did win a couple of races on the flat for Andrew Balding) - Frank is a nice, conscientious young lad and we couldn't be more pleased for him.  He did ride Arab League out all the way to the line, so hopefully the handicapper will take that into account when reassessing him!  I would imagine that the photographers there yesterday will be doing a good trade - Frank will probably be ordering just about every picture going and probably paper his room with them!

  
Above Left: Frank Hayes with his first jumping winner Arab League, and Right: being interviewed for Attheraces

We move onto Uttoxeter and Warwick with four runners this afternoon - Catch Tammy and Ladyvie run at Uttoxeter and will be partnered by Tom Scudamore, while at Warwick we run Spirit Of Barbados (Conor O'Farrell) and great racemare Lady Cricket's daughter, Swing Bowler who will be ridden by Timmy Murphy.

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A P McCoy took a nasty looking fall at Taunton yesterday afternoon from the Nicky Henderson trained Laudatory and has fractured two or three ribs.  He faces a couple of weeks on the sidelines, but to normal human beings like the rest of us(!) it would take much longer to heal.  He did walk away from the fall but looked in quite a bit of discomfort.  It certainly wasn't the best way for the champ to sign off 2011, but I am sure that he will be back in the New Year as good as ever.  Best wishes for a speedy recovery AP!

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I will be having my usual bet on the football this weekend and for those of you who like a flutter I will be backing Stoke at 8/11 and Bolton at 13/10.
Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year - see you in 2012!