14th April 2014

We passed a milestone on Friday when Rhythm Star won at Fontwell and took our seasonal total to 20 for the season passing our previous best total, and there is still two weeks of the season left.

Rhythm Star won the bumper under a penalty to maintain her unbeaten record. She was balloted out of the Mares Listed Bumper at Aintree, which was a shame, but sometimes these things happen for a reason. We’ll see how she is, but we may look at a Punchestown bumper for her.

I was disappointed with Houndscourt’s run, as he should have been in the shakeup but we’ll send him novice chasing in the new season, and he’ll find his form again before long. Lough Derg Way ran well on his seasonal return at Bangor on Saturday, and should be a lot of fun through the summer.

We’re now winding down a lot of our horses for the summer, but have a new recruit to the yard – Dark Lover turned up from Paul Nicholls’ and looks to be a smart horse. We have some new owners involved with him, and I’d like to think we could get one run into him this season whilst he is still a novice chaser, before we look to send him Hunter Chasing next season.