I was very lucky to ride three winners for The Queen when First Love landed a hattrick back in 2006, and it was with huge pride to be able to train a winner for The Royal Family as Carntop won last night at Worcester for Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Cornwall and Sir Chips Keswick. Carntop was a decent horse on the flat, but struggled with his wind on his debut over hurdles when we threw him into a Grade 2. However, after sorting his wind he ran a very promising race at Stratford earlier this month when we gave him a confidence boosting run. He benefitted from that run, and put in very impressive performance last night to win eased down having shown a decent turn of foot, as the Racing Post commented “once sent to pick off the frontrunners he did so with disdainful ease”. We’ll look for another similar race under a penalty before thinking too far ahead with him, but he’s a very exciting horse to have in our team.
Carntop wins at Worcester
We sent Between the Waters on the long road to Perth last night as some of his owners where up there for the week and he ran a cracker to be 2nd under a lovely ride from Page. He has been so consistent but just seems to bump into one, but he thoroughly deserves to open his account before too long.
Having won on handicap debut earlier this summer, Havisham had found life a bit tougher off his revised mark, so I put him back into novice company last weekend in a valuable Class 3 event at Stratford and he ran well to be 2nd under a well-judged ride from Gavin. On the same weekend I was looking forward to running Fact of the Matter back over hurdles, but he could finish only 4th at Cartmel, where it just didn’t quite happen for him. We’ll tweak a few things with him at home and I think we’ll see an improved effort next time out. Meanwhile, Our Three Sons ran another solid race to be 3rd at Market Rasen in a decent handicap. He’s another that might revert back into novice company and we might drop him back in trip again too.
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