Pat (far-side) popping over a few
PATS DREAM (12.40) made a most encouraging chase debut at Kelso last month jumping well and travelling sweetly until just losing out coming up the hill, eventually finishing in third place. As a former pointer and a real burly chasing type, tackling fences was always going to be the game for him and we went away full of optimism about what’s to come. He lines up another 3m novice handicap here off the same mark of 89, although will have to cope with heavy ground as opposed to the soft it was in the Borders last time. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the conditions beforehand but he seemed to get through it fine so we’ll see. A few of ours have needed the run this season so we’re hoping he’ll come on a fair bit for it too.
There isn’t a huge amount of winning form in this race but there are a few consistent types who know their way around, plus one coming up from down south, so while on paper Pat has an obvious chance dropping down in grade - and we believe he does - he will have to at least replicate his Kelso effort to get his head in front.
We were thrilled to finally get back into the winners’ enclosure with Gentleman De Mai’s gutsy victory at Kelso ten days ago. Beforehand we thought he’d have a fighting chance and so it proved as he dug in and stuck his neck out at the line to get there. It had been a long few months without a winner, especially as the two horses we had earmarked for summer campaigns both suffered injuries after scoring in May, leaving us with very few runners until recent weeks.
The postponements and relentless wet conditions have forced us to scrap plans and come up with new ones a few times so far, but it finally feels like the season is starting to roll into gear.