IT has been a relatively quiet end to the week racing-wise ahead of the Christmas and New Year rush but we have two runners over the weekend on opposite sides of the country.
Two boxes will be heading off tomorrow morning, one just down the road to Newcastle and the other across to Merseyside for Haydock.
LAST ONE TO SHOW (Newcastle, 1.05pm) goes over hurdles for the first time and we’re hoping that encountering some obstacles will be the making of him. I can’t hide from the fact he’s been desperately disappointing in his two bumpers because we know the ability he’s got at home and expected him to do much better.
But on both occasions he’s pulled far too hard, been very keen and really blew any chance of getting involved. We have decided to put a hood on him this weekend in the hope that works.
We had put a line through Catterick thinking it was the track that didn’t suit him but then quite fancied him at Newcastle the next time. We put Conor O’Farrell on because we thought he would be the better of our two that day - only for Okavango Delta to prove us wrong by finishing ahead of him in third!
He’s only five and sometimes horses just take a few runs to settle and get used to racing properly. Hopefully the experience of being away from the yard twice now will start to count for something.
There’s no doubt what we see every morning is miles better than what Last One To Show has demonstrated on the track so far. So hopefully the headgear will settle him a bit and he’s able to show the talent we know is hidden away in there somewhere.
Above is a lovely picture of him from this summer going up our gallops.....
PLANET NINE heads to Haydock for the 3-mile handicap hurdle at 3.15pm and he’s one we are excited to get out again.
He has run very well there before, finishing 4th in a competitive race which was part of the Challenger Series, so we have been keen to take him back.
Theo Gillard will ride to take seven off for us, he’s a jockey who has done well so his claim will help as we’re high in the handicap and he’s just a small horse.
We were very pleased with Planet Nine’s comeback run at Ayr then hoped he would kick on at Carlisle next time with the benefit of a run under his belt, but he was pretty disappointing. That’s twice he’s been there now and run badly, so we won’t be going back there with him again. Some horses just don’t like Carlisle and he seems to be one of them.
But on a flat track and with Theo taking his claim off, we’re hoping he will go well.
We will have more runners at Musselburgh on Monday, where it looks like we’ll be sending four or five so we’ll update on them on Sunday.
At Carlisle last Sunday it was fantastic to see Jonniesofa show everyone what a warrior he is once again by winning in such brave style. He's a fantastic horse for the yard and we were delighted for his owners after the patience they've shown over the years.
Seven Eye Bridge was the other leg of our double over there and it was a relief to see him win in such great fashion after disappointing us at Hexham. He's the first horse my uncle James Filmer-Wilson has had with us for a while so we were delighted to get him up and running.
