2nd January 2017

2nd January 2017

Happy New Year!!

We had a great end to 2016 with a few nice winners over the festive period. Maifalki won at Wolverhampton on the 22nd, he has now won his last two races and looks very progressive. He is now enjoying break, I can't wait to get him our again at the start of the flat season as I am sure he will be winning a valuable prize before long. Below is a picture of him in the winners enclosure with his owners. It was also a good day for Marcus Haigh  a new member of the team who was leading up his first winner.

Christmas Day was a busy one for the team with only 4 of us working and around 40 horses to muck out, two for loose exercise on the lunge and nine to be ridden out, with an early start we were still finished for 9.30 am though! We would not normally ride out so many but with ten runners over the following two days they all needed a leg stretch.

Seven runners on Boxing Day and a lot in with a chance, I was really hopefully we would have a good day. Most ran well, Uno Valoroso finished 4th on his seasonal debut, Mr Snoozy ran a great race to finish 2nd and Lough Salt confirmed his upward curve in form finishing 3rd in a hot race.  Bankhall notched his first career win, given a really positive ride by Jamie Hamilton he jumped fantastically making nearly all the running to score by over three lengths.

The following day we were back at Wetherby with 3 runners; Craggaknock looked up against it in a hot novice hurdle but he confirmed the promise of his first hurdle win and took up the running at the last to beat the favourite by 3 lengths. He is one of, if not the best hurdler, that has been trained at Cornborough Manor and heads for a Grade 2 novice at Haydock. Aislabie then made it a day to remember by winning the Juvenile hurdle on this third run over obstacles, he is only a small horse but he is very tough and will be winning more races under both codes in the future. Lilly's Legend was favourite for the last race on the card  but unfortunately could not bring up the treble, she was probably feeling the effects from a hard race 16 days earlier. Below is a picture of Harry with Aislabie (left) and Craggaknock after their wins at Wetherby.

Lots to look forward to this year with quite a few new horses, I am confident my fourth year as a trainer will be the best yet.