26/09/21

We had a much welcome return to the winner's enclosure this week when good old Spanish Mane won the seventh race of her career and made it back to back wins in the same apprentice race at Leicester on Monday.
It has been a very stop-start season for her as the ground has gone against her wherever we wanted to run but thankfully Leicester missed all the rain we got in Newmarket and the ground was her favourite good to firm. It was a race for jockeys who hadn't ridden more than ten winners and as Spanish only seems to win with girls riding her, we were limited in choice but found Rose Dawes who is based with Mick Channon and she gave her the perfect ride to win by a length. Saffie Osbourne won this race for us last year and she's gone on to much better things so maybe Rose is another name to watch out for.

Spanish Mane & owners in the winner's enclosure (to order photos please get in touch)

As Spanish won an apprentice race, she won't have a weight penalty if she runs before the handicapper reassess her rating so I've wisely entered her twice this week to make the most of the loophole. Kempton on Wednesday looks a more likely place to go than Lingfield the following day and she has some form at the track in the past too so hopefully she can transfer her ability to the all-weather and get another win. We'll try and keep Rose on board if she is available.
This looks likely to be our sole representative of the week but the following fortnight should be busier with plenty of horses pencilled in to run and some much needed rain arriving to soften the ground across the country.