Love the Jumps

We will jump right into the first race on day 3, this was the Marsh Novices Chase. The race lost one of its key protagonists at the 6th fence when Itchy Feet unseated Gavin Sheehan, Faugheen took the field along till Melon and Patrick Mullins took up the running. He led all the way round till the turn for home where a smooth travelling Samcro took a narrow lead, jumping 2 out Samcro made a mistake handing the advantage back to Melon . Melon jumped the last just in front with Samcro landing level with him as the 2 of them set off up the hill being chased home by Faugheen . The 2 of them flashed past the post together with a phot being called, resulting in Samcro winning by a nose. It was good to see Faugheen out there enjoying himself, he just didn’t seem to have the legs to get to the front 2 on the way home. You’ve got to feel for Melon though, thats the 4th time he’s finished 2nd at the festival, 2nd in the Supreme and twice runner up in the Champion Hurdle now this.

Well the 4 days of jumps racing that we all look forward to which seems an age to come around, is over and done with for another year. As expected there was some highs and lows which we will touch on here. At one stage we didn’t know if we would even get the festival on due to the Coronavirus, but we did, so without further ado let’s start looking back at the best 4 days in the racing Calendar. We start with the Supreme Novices Hurdle. Asterion Forlonge went off favourite in the end and it was he that made the running, he jumped right like he has had a tendency to do, none so more than 2 from home were he jumped violently out to his right bumping into Elixir D’ainay , who fell and brought down Captain Guinness who was travelling well at the time. During that Shishkin and Abacadabras had only just managed to stay out of harms way. Approaching the final flight it was Abacadabras that looked to be going the better of the 2, but it was the Henderson trained Shishkin that m

With Cheltenham now being just over a week away the racing takes a dip in quality but there was still some nice performances in testing conditions this weekend. We start at Doncaster, with the 2m handicap chase. The race revolved all around one horse, Gino Trail who was making his first start for Fergal O’Brien. He went from the front like he always does jumping for fun, made a mistake at the 8th but that didn’t stop him. The favourite Dolos who was held up by Harry Cobden made progress through the field before ultimately having nothing more to give on the ground. This left Gino Trail to go on and win well from Katpoli by 3 3/4 lengths. Next at Doncaster was the Mares novice hurdle, the Nicholls trainer Cill Anna was sent off a short priced favourite and was looking for her 3rd win over hurdles. It wasn’t easy for her in those racing conditions of the heavy ground and the strong winds. She travelled well joining the leader Ziggy Rose at 2 out, the pair of them had a