Tuesday 27th July 2021 - winner number 12 and winter horses coming in thick and fast now.

It was lovely to see Howdilyoudo winning again this season on the back of a recent wind operation.  She travelled and jumped well at Uttoxeter last week, and showed a good turn of speed to win quite cosily in the end, after getting a bash at the 2nd last.  The penny really is beginning to drop with her, and the wind op certainly helped too.  She looks like she can progress a great deal more, especially as the handicapper only put her up 3lbs.  She’ll certainly jump a fence as well, so she has a bright future too, which is exciting.  She runs for the Chasing Gold partnership, and there are some shares available, so now might be a good time to join up.

Howdilyoudo wins well at Uttoxeter.

Previous chase winners Thistle Do Nicely and Pisgah Pike both ran really well this week too.  Thistle Do Nicely was 2^nd on Sunday at Uttoxeter, where he ran with great credit.  He landed a bit steeply over the 2nd last and the last, which meant he lost a bit of momentum but rallied all the way to the line. It was purely inexperience of jumping at speed over the final three fences that cost us victory. The winner had that much more experience than us, and that was the difference. Thistle will get sharper with each run, and will be a better chaser than a hurdler. There is a lot more still to come from him.

Meanwhile, Pisgah Pike was 3^rd under a penalty at Uttoxeter on Friday.  He held every chance but a mistake at the 4^th last put him on the back foot, and having lost a front shoe he just struggled to pick up the talented pair in front.  He picked up some more valuable chasing experience though, and I’d like to think he can keep improving. 

Beholden was 2^nd down at Newton Abbot last week in a class 3 maiden hurdle.  He got caught behind some dodgy jumpers early on, and that rather put him off his stride, and it took him a while to get into a rhythm as a result, and was always playing catch up, and although he rallied well, he could never quite get to the winner.  I’d like to hope we can get his head in front later in August.

We’ll run a few at Stratford on Thursday, including a new horse that HRH The Duchess of Cornwall has recently sent us called Dark Motive, who runs in a juvenile hurdle.  Then there is a 2 week break at the start of August, so although there isn’t much racing at the moment, we are still pretty busy as the winter horses are all coming back in thick and fast now…..but I am delighted to have 12 winners on the board already this season in the first couple of months and over £75k in prizemoney, long may the form continue…..