Good evening all,
It’s been a quiet few weeks with not many runners due to the weather conditions and the impact it has been having on the ground. However, Nightboattoclyro took his chances last week at Ludlow in a two mile five furlong handicap hurdle on soft ground. He ran a creditable 6th in what was a very competitive affair beaten 9.5 lengths. The plan was to ride him closer to the pace and to get a bit of cover, but in a very tightly bunched start Jack said he couldn’t get the position he wanted and took up a position at the back of the field. As the race developed ‘Nightboat’ jumped and travelled well throughout and turning in to the home straight was in 7th position roughly four lengths behind the leaders. In the final stages of the race Nightboattoclyro stayed on strongly unable to quicken with the leaders, but had a good battle for 6th position.
Davids plan for him now is to give him one more runner on ‘better’ ground before letting him have a summer of grass to strengthen, before coming back in the following season for novice chasing which we think will be the making of this horse!
(Click Link for Jack Tudor’s debrief after Ludlow)
Pray For A Rainbow has been entered to run at Huntingdon this coming Sunday (1st March). It’s a track we know he likes as he has ran their twice coming second on both occasions so we will hope for a good performance from him. If you would like to come on Sunday please let me know either on here or via the WhatsApp group.
Georgie, our grey mare with Christian Williams is getting closer to making her race course debut in the coming weeks. It has taken a bit of time for ‘the penny to drop’ but Christian and Jack Tudor have both said things are starting to come together and we should have an entry very soon. She has also now been given a racing name which is ‘Jen’s Georgie’.
Some disheartening news last week as Gallic Geordie has been diagnosed with a condition called atrial fibrillation which is also know as equine AF. The condition is an abnormal rhythm with the heart which causes cardiac issues. To us, this would explain his poor form and how it got progressively worse as we had always thought he’s shown much more ability in training last season and at the beginning of this season. The good news is that we are going to give him every chance in making a comeback by giving him the necessary treatments to hopefully correct the rhythm of his heart. Great horses such as Denman and Sprinter Sacre had the same condition and returned to the racecourse with Denman winning the Hennessy Gold Cup and Sprinter Sacre the Queen Mother Champion Chase. I’m not saying he will return to those levels or even if he will return to a racecourse, but he will be given very chance to do so.
Two of our future stars Lucky and Bingo have come back from being broken at Martin Jones. He was very pleased with both of them and their pre-racing education has now been completed. They will both go into training next year where they will run in National Hunt flat races (bumpers).
(Lucky cantering at Martin Jones’)
Now that the storms have passed and with spring just around the corner, we will start getting some action and have a few runners again.
Cheers, Rhys
