Love the Jumps

  Cheltenham's two day Showcase meeting took centre stage this weekend, with racing from national hunts HQ starting on the Friday. here are a few stand out performances from the two days, firstly Galvin who took the 3m novice chase for Gordon Elliot and Robbie Power, he was a bit dubious with some of his early jumping but as the race progressed he found his rhythm and won impressively by 7 lengths. After he was installed as the favourite for the National Hunt Chase back at Cheltenham come March, hard to put anyone off but its a bit soon to be backing one for that race just now. The standout performance of the day went to Rouge Vif who won as easy as he liked, he travelled and jumped superbly taking up the lead with 4 to jump before putting in an inch perfect jump at the last before being eased down to win by 7 lengths. This performance saw him being quoted for the Champion Chase at 16/1, yes it was an impressive run, but I'd like to see him do it in graded company as he would...

  With Chepstow's two day meeting having just gone, this is now the time that the National Hunt racing starts to take centre stage. The meeting started with a winner for Paul Nicholls with Thyme White winning easily, he was the first of 8 winners across the two days for the former Champion trainer. The main event on Chepstow's race card was the Persian War Novices hurdle, once again going the way of team Ditcheat with McFabulous winning impressively and also getting my 10 to follow off to a flying start. He travelled and jumped well throughout the race beating Courtandbould buy 3 lengths but never had to be asked for his effort by Cobden, bookies have already cut him in price from 33/1 to 14s for the Stayers hurdle at Cheltenham come March, I'd like to see him out of novice company first before getting ahead of myself but he does look like he could be a potential star over the staying distances. The best finish at Chepstow on the Friday came in the veterans c...

  With what many see as the official start of the jumps season starting at Chepstow on Friday, now seems like the perfect time to have a sit down and pick out a few horses to follow this season. this year I have the added assistance of a couple of people to pick out a few horses each to follow. Hopefully the horses that are provided below can have a successful season and go onto big things. same as last year you can click on the horses name where it will take you to their Racing Post profile where you can add them to your tracker. Saint Sonnet (Paul Nicholls)   He arrived at Ditcheat from France where he made 8 starts winning 3 times over hurdles as well as winning his only start over fences. We didn't see him make his debut for Paul till late on in the season, he did this in late February at Catterick, he was sent off a short priced favourite and justified this winning easily in the end by nearly 4 lengths. Two weeks later he was running at Cheltenham...

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 ...

With the weather not getting any better more and more meetings got postponed due to bad racing conditions, luckily Kempton went ahead so thats where we will start. The Grade 2 Pendil Novices Chase, this saw Commanche Red go off favourite, he was looking to record back to back wins at Kempton after winning well on Boxing Day. Master Tommytucker led throughout the race jumping well, hoping to do better than he did last time here were he fell. Unfortunately that wasn’t to be the case as he fell once again when holding a 2 length lead, hampering Pistol Whipped in the process. Turning in for home with 3 to jump it was between Who Dares Wins and Southfield Stone , they were neck and neck up the run in, with Southfield Stone just having his grey head in front jumping the last. But it was Who Dares Wins who landed with the momentum and ran on well to win by 3/4s of a length. He’s been a brilliant horse for connections over the years having now won over fences as well as hurdles...