It’s been a quiet enough time for the team in the last few weeks, but we’re excited to be running Altobelli at Ascot on Saturday (14:25). He obviously arrives to the track off the back of his win there during the Berkshire Winter Millions meeting. Everything has gone well in the meantime and although he’s up five pounds in the handicap, we hope it won’t be too much for him to handle. He’s in really good order, schooled nicely during the week, and we’re looking forward to him taking his chance at a track he loves.
We’ll see how things go on Saturday, but if we’re happy with the weekend’s outcome, we might think about something like a Coral Cup at the Cheltenham Festival. Saturday comes first, of course, so we’ll cross the Cheltenham bridge when we come to it.
We send three other runners to Ascot on Saturday in the shape of Dubrovnik Harry (13:15), Neon Madonna and Just A Heartbeat (both 16:45). Dubrovnik Harry has to bounce back from a disappointing run at Plumpton over fences at the end of last year. We’ve been really pleased with him at home, and we’re hoping that the return to hurdles will be up his street. If you ignore that run at Plumpton, you’d see he has some really nice form, so we hope he’d be competitive here as he’s in as good form as we’ve had him this term.
It’s safe to say that we’re not expecting the same type of performance from Neon Madonna or Just A Heartbeat in the bumper as we saw from Anno Power last year, but we are still hopeful that they’ll show their running. Neon Madonna will be all the better for that run at Wincanton and should take a big step forward. The case is similar with Just A Heartbeat, who we haven’t seen since the autumn, but ought to be much better for that experience. We’d like to think the pair of them can give their owners a good day out.
Latest Stable Update
Gidleigh Park is in great form and has been schooling nicely at home ahead of his intended run in the Grade 2 Pendil Novices’ Chase at Kempton (next Saturday). That race would obviously be a step up in trip from his win at Windsor, but he’s won over the distance before and at this stage, we’re just trying to get lots of experience into him.
It’s safe to say that Anno Power was disappointing at Taunton last week, but that really wasn’t her running and she was lame post-race. We thought we best see if we could get to the bottom of things with her, and she’s actually been in Newmarket Equine Hospital since that run. They’re still running tests on her, but the good thing is that she’s in the best hands there, so hopefully we can figure out the problem sooner rather than later. She’s a very talented mare, and fingers crossed we can see her at her best soon.
Boothill is recovering well following an operation on a nasty overreach into his tendon sheath. I’m pleased to say he came home the following week, and he’s remained stable; his recovery is going well. He won’t be seen again this season, but his long-term prognosis is good. It’s unfortunate that he picked up that injury, but it’s just about getting him back to full health now. We’re all looking forward to having him back in training next season.
Have a lovely weekend,
Harry