Had a great weekend in London, starting at Sandown on Friday, followed by Fulham v Stoke on Saturday and culminating with the London Marathon today.
While I was there with family supporting my brother-in-law in his first London Marathon, one of Shropshire Wolves main work riders at the Mark Brisbourne yard, Katrina Rockey was running in aid of Farm Africa and clocked a very respectable 4 hours 12 minutes. Should anyone wish to add to her sponsorship list please get in touch with myself or the stable.
Our first entry for a while was made today when Baizically was entered for a handicap at Hamilton on Sunday. Black Nun should be making her seasonal debut shortly with May11th looking a likely date for our diaries. The events of today reminded me that it is a long season and patience in racing is definitely a virtue !
It was a quiet week for our horses with horses on rest, just back in training or two to three weeks off a run. Black Nun and Baizically should be our next runners in early May providing everything goes according to plan. It was good to get Zennerman back into training this week, hopefully the enforced rest will prove to be a blessing in disguise as he looks extremely well.
Having been chained to the house a little recently with workmen here, I took the chance to get away to Newmarket for a couple of days this week and like many could not fail to be really impressed by the filly Fantasia both in looks and performance. It was one of those rare performances on the track that really could be described as breathtaking even allowing for the limited opposition. A pity for British racegoers that she will probably head to France, but a relief for backers of Rainbow View in the 1000 Guineas. Delegator did his job well, but did not leave anything like the same impression for me.
Many of us are obviously delighted to see Wolves get their promotion to the Premiership today. It is to be hoped that by achieving this as early as April 18th allows the club plenty of time to make significant reinforcements for the year ahead, a luxury that was not afforded by their play-off success last time around. Well done Mick, you have silenced your doubters. A telephone call received from a vet generally requires a deep intake of breath, today was proof that news can sometimes be good. It seems that our patience, along with the efforts of Alan Swinbank and his staff as well as Richard and Rachael at Kinsale, is to be rewarded as we have received the green light for Zennerman to return to training in the next week. He is to go back in training at Ness Strange Stables with Mark Brisbourne who once purchased him as a yearling.
Tonight's football seems to be in stark contrast to last night in the Champions League where both games still hang in the balance. As I write this only the wildest optimist could see Liverpool or Bayern Munich turning these ties round. If Barcelona can continue to turn in performances like this and the one against Lyon surely there can be no other champion this year.
A great effort by New Star last night, made up for the race 24 hours previous conspiring all against him and his preferred run style. Paul Pickard gave him a lovely ride and after travelling like much the best horse throughout the race, he was just touched off in the dying strides. This was a good note to let "Jimmy" have a short break after his career earnings went through the 30k barrier.
Shropshire Wolves have only ever had one Natonal Hunt runner and he was ridden by Liam Treadwell, our congratulations go to him for his magnificent success on the 100/1 Grand National winner Mon Mome. If only we had all had a soft bet on him we could have paid a few bills. Never a race I bet on myself but I must say it was a great race to watch, however it was quite amazing there was a twelve length winner after so many horses being in close contention approaching the second last fence.
I feel it is important to be optimistic when planning ahead and in the hope of a good run tomorrow we declared again for Saturday night with Paul Pickard claiming 7lb to offset any penalty. Now that is optimistic, but it will do no harm to reduce his top weight burden should he run again on Saturday and Paul deserves another chance given his recent effort at Lingfield. A pleasant change to have a day with no workmen around the place with the new heating system installed before the plasterer and decorator start again tomorrow. Spent loads of time this morning putting together lots of multiple bets on the international correct scores tonight, managed one treble and a double but all extremely frustrating as Russia failing to score a second against Liechenstein has proved extremely expensive.
The 8.50 at Wolverhampton on Friday was re-opened at 10.00 when only five declared , this made it a simple decision to declare New Star given the prize money on offer. Sounds like we will have a decent turnout of partners on Friday so it will be great if he can put in yet another decent run for us. |
