A glorious morning here in Newmarket, it is still starting off on the cold side but hopefully the frosts are behind us now and we can get some sunshine to bring the horses forward. I worked a few of the horses on the Al Bahathri this morning and I was happy with how most of them are going.
I was pleased with both of my maidens at Windsor yesterday, Swiftee ran well to be third in the first division of the mile maiden, he stepped up on his Wood Ditton run and although the winner won very well and it may not have been the best of races, he has showed us promise for the future. On The Bill ran fourth on his debut in the second division and showed us some encouragement for the future, he got a little tired late on as he was entitled to. It was fantastic that he ran so well as he is the first horse I have for an Old Etonian partnership I formed. He is well named as ‘On The Bill’ is a term used at Eton to describe the moment when you are in trouble and you have to explain your actions to the Headmaster! We thought we had found Kafoo an ideal opportunity at Bath but he was once more frustrating and was very slow to get going out of the stalls. When Paul asked him to go and win his race his head came up and it was very disappointing indeed.
We have no runners today but we have declared two for Chester on Wednesday and Thursday and I shall discuss them both in future blogs. We receive the new and revised official ratings on a Tuesday and Amazing Red was allotted an official mark of ninety today. It does seem high for a Pontefract maiden winner but if you rate the race through Lord Yeats and take into account the fact he faded late, you can see how the handicapper came to his decision and it seems fair. I hope he can continue to progress from his Pontefract win and it is exciting to have some nice progressive horses at La Grange for this season.
It was good to see Found win yesterday, it was a very smart performance given she was stopped in her run so close to the finish and she improved a lot from her first run of the season whereas Fascinating Rock shaped as if he needed the run. It is fantastic when we get high class older horses kept in training and I am sure she will be winning at the top level again before too long. Maurice was also very impressive in Hong Kong on Sunday and it will be great if he comes to Royal Ascot, for me he is the best miler in the world currently.