Love the Jumps

This weekend we had the final meeting of the year at Cheltenham, this being the International meeting, for me it was not up to the usual quality that you have on a Cheltenham card, but there were still some nice performances over the 2 days. Firstly, Happygolucky won the Novices chase taking him to 2/3 this season over fences, he jumped well before making a mistake 3 out but this did not stop him as he took up the lead before 2 from home going clear. There is no doubt we will probably see him back at her for the festival in March but just depends what race they aim him for, I myself do not think he would have the class for a RSA, so he could quite possibly end up in the National Hunt chase for which he is the current 3 rd fav. The standout race on the Friday was the rescheduled Peterborough chase, the race saw Kalashnikov just sent off the favourite after a nice reappearance run over hurdles at Haydock, he ran a nice race and travelled well for most of it, but it was his jumping tha

It was great to see fans back at Sandown for the Tingle Creek meeting even if I couldn’t attend due to being in tier 3, but I’m pretty sure they wouldnt of been dissapointed in the racing that they saw. We will jump straight into the first Grade 1 which was the Henry VIII Novices Chase, it was a competitive field, with all five of the runners going into the race unbeaten over the larger obstacles, three of the five runners were 4 year olds and it was those three that filled the first three home. The race went the way of Allmankind , which was another winner for the 10 to follow making it 8 wins from 15 runs. He raced the only way he knows, going from the front and making all, he jumped out to his left on occasions with Dan Skelton saying after the race they expected that. He had a 4-5 length lead coming out of the railway fences with Harry Cobden and Hitman  in pursuit. With the pond fence being omitted he only had two fences to jump in the straight, which he jumped well when the press

  We will start off at Newbury on the Friday which was day one of the 2 day Winter Carnival, the first race was a maiden hurdle which saw the eagerly awaited jumps debut of Flinteur Sacre , he was sent off a short priced favourite which was always gonna be the case considering his reputation and connections. From the start he never really looked comfortable, he was always keen and put in a few dodgy jumps, and ultimately when push came to shove he wasn’t good enough on the day and could only finish 4th beaten 7 lengths. In the end the winner was My Drogo for the Skeltons who came into the race after finishing 2nd at 50/1 in a Cheltenham bumper a couple of months ago. He himself also put in a few iffy jumps, but approaching the last hurdle he was the one travelling the best and when Harry asked him to go seal the race he did impressively staying on strongly in the run in. Obviously people will crab the form with there being a 200/1 shot in second, but for me he looks like he could be a