John and I jetted off on Wednesday for a holiday to Dubai to see the World Cup meeting and we are having a lovely time as we always do here. You know you'll get good weather, everywhere is safe and clean plus there is lots to do. We enjoyed World Cup night in the excellent company of Kev and Sarah Brown whilst the top-class action on the track is always a pleasure to watch. This will be our last chance for a break before the season starts so we're making the most of it! Shelley and the team at home have everything in hand and it's nice to know that we can get away and things will be fine in the yard. The biggest headache for them is probably looking after all the other animals - dogs, cats, birds, chickens etc! We're due to have a few runners whilst we're away but, like I said, the team at home will have things well organised. Smokey Malone is declared to run at Wolverhampton on Tuesday evening. He came back from a short break to win at Southwell in January and then finished third at the same track a couple weeks later. He's stepping up to two miles but finished second on his only attempt at the trip before. The one concern might be the track as Wolverhampton can be quite sharp so hopefully he doesn't lack a turn of foot in the finish. The other entry for the week comes the following day at Nottingham on Wednesday. Macho Sun loves soft ground but the course is holding an inspection on Monday morning to deem if it is safe to race due to water logging. Hopefully it gets the go ahead as he is in great form and the best race he ran last year was on his first run of the season in similar conditions. After a successful all-weather season, the new turf one didn't get off to quite the start we expected as both runners at Doncaster folded tamely after looking likely to run well at the halfway stage. We expect our horses to improve for their first run of the season and it might just be that they need their first run to blow away the cobwebs a bit more than we thought they would. It's going to be a long season though so having a bit up your sleeve for further down the line is no bad thing. An update following Mrs Meader's run was sent out to N.E.T. Racing Club members, if you didn't receive it, please click HERE. After how these first two initial runners of the new season fared, I expect other returning horses to similarly need the race so those comments would apply to Queen's Company who heads to Southwell on Thursday. All her wins have been at Yarmouth but Southwell is a similar layout so maybe she'll like it there too. She hasn't had many tries on the all-weather so you'd half fancy her if there wasn't the doubt that she might be a bit short of work at this stage.
One horse who seems to go well after a break is Smokey Malone and he has an entry at Chelmsofrd's valuable Good Friday meeting. Because the prize money is so good there are a lot of entries so getting a run might prove difficult for him. If he can get into the race, I hope he has a good chance of landing some money at a track he has run well at in the past. Following the success recently of his filly Eloped, Paul Brierley is hoping to launch a new syndicate this spring and is aiming to buy a horse at the forthcoming breeze-up sales. Paul is a long-time owner and has run many syndicates before, he is also jockey Dylan Hogan's agent and I have always found him very straight-forward and honest to deal with. Full details can be found below and please get in touch if you would like to know more. |