WE head to Carlisle today with two runners and are a bit surprised their ground is still good because it’s very unusual that side of the country getting less ran than we’ve had over at Northumberland.
First up will be SLANELOUGH (1.55) who is going for a hat-trick of wins, after successes at Ayr and Perth in the spring. It took so long to get a win into him I feel he still deserves another one! He’s a novice until later this year so this race looked perfect for him. He’s up ten pounds from where he was before Ayr in April so obviously life is getting tougher, but he’s in good order at home and hopefully he can pick up where he left off.
We will also run an exciting bumper horse LIMERICK LEADER (5.20) in the last race on the card and can’t wait to get him on the track. We bought him out of Ireland in the spring after being second in a point-to-point bumper at Wexford. He’s impressed us a lot so far, doing everything we’ve asked of him.
I ride him a lot so have a good feel for where he is and think he’s a bit of a dude. I really like him and hopefully the experience he got in Ireland will stand him in good stead. Hopefully he produces on the track what he’s been showing at home.
We have been able to get a school over fences into Fete Champetre after his win at Kelso the other week. Sean Quinlan came in to pop him over a few and everything went to plan. He did really well to win on his comeback and it was either a case of his fitness was better than we thought or his class got him through.
He’s an exciting horse for novice chasing this season so we’ll be looking for a race for him soon to get that part of his career underway.