Solajan
It looks like the weather will soon get warmer here at HQ after a cold spell but we desperately need some rain. We have beautiful blue skies today but there is rain forecast although it is not nearly enough given how dry we have been.
Chester is one of my favourite meetings of the year and we run Global Revival in the 4:05 there this afternoon. He has progressed for a step up in trip and won comfortably last time at Beverley having been carried wide. It looks a very strong contest however with Stradivarius at the top of the market. He won as he liked recently at Beverley by six lengths and looks to have improvement in him. Al Zaman was entered in the Derby Trial and is entered at Royal Ascot so is clearly highly regarded. Whip Nae Nae was eye catching when running on late last time and Here And Now is bred in the purple. I hope our horse can continue to surprise us but this is the strongest race he has contested by a fair way.
We run two horses tonight at Chelmsford. Solajan creeps into the bottom of the weights in a Class 2 handicap at Chelmsford. They are once more putting on fantastic prize money and it has attracted a strong field. Ideally we would be running on turf but he needs cut in the ground and it looks unlikely he will get it so we have gone back to the all-weather again with him. Elucidation heads the market and is highly regarded, he disappointed at Newmarket but the ground could well have been too fast for him and he won his Maiden well. Drochaid was a solid second here recently, Curlew Rover won a good little fillies’ Maiden here and Total Star won a decent Novice Stakes on final start and was highly tried last year. Our horse is unexposed and has a squeak but we are not drawn ideally in stall 8.
Red Master runs in the last at 8:55 and he struggled to get involved from a bad draw on debut. I hope he can show a little more tonight but I would ideally have liked to have got him on turf if we could find decent ground for him and it may happen too quickly for him around Chelmsford.