The yard has certainly made a fantastic start to the new flat season, even if it is a case of what might have been so far!
There have been TWO winners in the past fortnight but if a little more luck had been in our favour it could easily have been at least five as ELEVEN other horses (six in the runners up spot) have found their way in to the winners enclosure and of our recent 24 runners, 18 of them have brought home some prize money, taking us past £80,000 for 2019.
Daddies Girl
We will start off with the month’s clear highlight and that was DADDIES GIRL landing a £25,000 handicap on her return at Nottingham and so nearly gave her owners Steve Perry (who had flown in from Thailand for the race), Bob and Julie Daly a huge priced double as DADDIES DIVA finished second at 100/1 earlier in the card. Daddies Girl was an extremely sharp two-year-old, winning three times and ended up rated 91 at the end of her juvenile campaign. It was always questionable whether she would train on from two to three but that she did and even though she did not win last year, she had a strong campaign with five places but just needed a bit of leniency from the handicapper. Resuming her four-year-old career off 83, we targeted this £25,000 race so it was extremely frustrating when the box broke down and she missed her intended prep race three weeks previously. However, it did not matter as she ran out a length winner under Theodore Ladd, showing a gutsy attitude in the process and may return in a bid for some elusive black type in the Nottinghamshire Oaks in June. As stated earlier, Daddies Diva ran a stormer to finish second at 100/1, showing plenty of speed to suggest she can easily go one better soon. Also, on the card, MANDOCELLO ran a nice race to finish third at 33/1 in his final Novice and we look forward to him in handicap company.
Singing The Blues
Our other winner was our winter superstar SINGING THE BLUES who confirmed he is equally effective on the turf by running out a convincing winner on the turf at Bath. It was a quick return as he had valiantly tried to make all over 1m6f at Chelmsford but having been hassled early enough by a 33/1 shot, he just didn’t have anything left to fend off Houlton. Making a quick return six days later and back down to Class 6 level at Bath, he won very comfortably under Rob Hornby to take his recent form figures to 111221 – not bad going!
The seconds on the other hand are frustrating but at least it is a sign that the horses are in top form. Little BETTYS HOPE may not have appreciated the deeper fibresand surface as she finished second for third consecutive time at Southwell. BONNEVILLE emulated that by getting caught on the line at Salisbury, having made nearly all the running he was agonisingly caught on the line. He has really found his level of late and that was a career best effort. He makes a quick return off the same mark at Southwell on Wednesday. That same evening at Salisbury CRYSTAL CASQUE and SIR RODERIC finished third and fourth in an eighteen-runner sprint, suggesting both will have strong campaigns and the night ended with more frustration as MASTER GREY got absolutely no run in the finale and had to rank as an unlucky loser finishing fifth. Our luck at the first Salisbury meeting the previous Sunday was no better, SUFFICIENT was running a stormer when she shifted slightly left into the winner which caused her to be broadsided and as she is partially blind in her left eye, she panicked and nearly went over the rail, badly losing her action. She did extremely well to finish fourth in the circumstances.
Friday saw RAGSTONE VIEW have a near impossible draw to defy due to the strong stands side bias at Lingfield but he nearly defied it as he stayed on strongly to finish second. He settled slightly better than he has done last year and the hood has had a positive effect. Monday saw two more places, up to a mile again the very strong pace was not ideal for HANDYTALK but he saw the trip out well by finishing second and GREELEY ran better than on his return by finishing third in the three-year-old handicap.