Skip to main content

Featured

Cheltenham 2021 - Review

The week belongs to Henry De Bromhead, Rachael Blackmore and Jack Kennedy. Minella Indo won the Gold Cup having lost the RSA on the line this time last year. Everyone loves a comeback story and this is one because following that defeat there was a fall at Leopardstown at Christmas and a very ordinary run in February. I thought he was very overrated and even though he fit the age range  (the last 3 winners of the race were 7 or 8 years old), I over looked him for Al Boum Photo. Funnily enough it had the feel of when Al Boum Photo won in 2019 because there wasn't a lot of talk about him. I still expected him to be beaten even when he flew the last but A Plus Tard couldn't run him down. He proved me and the doubters wrong today by adding the top prize in National Hunt racing to that narrow second last year and the Albert Bartlett two years ago. What a Cheltenham record! Fantastic for Jack Kennedy as well. He's had some week too - Black Tears beating the hot favourite Concertis
1 comment
Read more

Clonard Abbey Has First Run Since January At Gowran And Viscount Wilson Improves At Perth

I've seen Clonard Abbey run a couple of times at Dundalk and the final time it was felt that she didn't like the all weather surface and wanted longer. It's taken a long time to get her out on turf but she finally got out on a racecourse again last week in a 1 miler. Nathan Crosse was doing the steering and his 5lb claim took her to the bottom of the weights. Understandably, she looked a bit rusty but she was still in contention as they hit the straight on nearly soft ground. Nathan had Clonard Abbey wide and she looked like she might have a chance to attack if she could find a change of gear but sadly she didn't. She did keep going to the line to make sue she didn't finish last. We'll wait to hear what's next for her.

Viscount Wilson returned to Perth but this time in a 2 mile race having faded over 2m 4f here in June. Champion Jockey Richard Johnson had the ride again but the word from the yard beforehand was that they weren't expecting much from Viscount carrying 11st 11lbs. An overnight deluge of rain and more during the day meant the going was soft by the time the club horse got racing. Dicky Johnson had him towards the back of the field. His jumping wasn't particularly tidy but he was travelling ok. You could tell from a long way out that today wasn't going to be the day he won his maiden as he was under the Johnson drive well before they hit the final straight and he wasn't making any ground on the leaders. Still, he came back into it and ended up running on well to take a few hundred pound of prize money for 4th place. Maybe 2m 2f might suit him! The word from the yard was that he was home safe and sound, they were happy with the run and they would be looking for something similar for him.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts