Windy In The Westcountry!

I am pleased to see that Lingfield passed a precautionary inspection this morning ahead of this afternoon's card.  I don't know if they have been enduring the same battering by the wind that we have in the west country, but they have certainly had the share of the rain with the course currently riding heavy.  We have two runners in the maiden hurdle - Ashbrittle and Home Run.  I thought that decent ex-flat stayer Ashbrittle put up a promising first effort over timber when finishing second on similar going at Ffos Las last time.  He seemed to handle conditions okay that day and with that experience under his belt, a race of this nature should be within his compass.

Unfortunately it was a bit of a day to forget at Southwell yesterday afternoon with two short-priced runners faling to oblige.  Battle Group is clearly something of an enigma and he didn't look to be the most co-operative of partners for Conor O'Farrell who in fairness did well to get him round to collect second prize money.  He has always been a very talented individual (he won a Listed hurdle at Aintree on Grand National day) and he ran a good debut race over fences when runner-up at Wetherby, however he showed the other side of his nature yesterday.  A horse of his ability, I am sure there will be other days for him.

Mr Chow's bid to extend his unbeaten sequence over fences to three came to an end at the thirteenth fence when taking a fall.  He had jumped well up until that point and looked to be travelling nicely - it just goes to show you what a great leveller this sport is...sadly it was just one of those days.

*****

I see that some bookies have quoted David's flying grey Grands Crus (pictured right) at 5/2 to win any race at the Cheltenham Festival in March.  That could turn out to be quite a big price as I see that he is a top-priced 5/2 for the RSA, while he is only single figure prices for the Gold Cup...I just wish I knew which race he is going to run in!

*****

I think it will probably be fairly quiet in the yard this morning (if I were riding out, I think that I would give head lad Eddie Buckley a wide berth!) after Manchester United were absolutely stuffed 3-0 by Newcastle last night.  I will even rub salt in by claiming that my team, West Ham had a hand in the result as ex-Hammer Demba Ba scored for the Magpies...sorry Eddie!