Sunday 8 February

For the fifth time since the 30th January plans for Bobby Gee have been thwarted. During this time we have only managed to get one run into him at Wincanton, and he will be entered there again next Saturday. Not ideal, but the weather is making life very difficult at the moment. Wincanton today is below freezing and covered in 4 inches of snow, and with more forecast over Monday and Tuesday it looks unlikely that it will be raceable, so we will continue to enter him up.A fascinating race at Kempton yesterday with the return of the Gold Cup winner Denman. It was a race I watched with interest, after hearing some interesting rumours at Newbury last month. Racing is full of rumours and hearsay, but it was at Newbury that I was informed by one of the members of the Nick Brown Racing Club that he had been talking to someone in the Paul Nicholls camp that had said that Denman had been breaking blood vessels at home on the gallops and they could not get to the bottom of it. Now this sort of information is often banded about, but it was very interesting to see Paul Nicholls go straight to the horses nose as Ruby dismounted in the unsaddling enclosure, possibly to see if the horse had bled. So maybe there is something in this - and if so I could not be backing him for the Gold Cup!! I ver much hope it is not the case - as racing does really need another epic clash between him and Kauto Star in the middle of March!! Saying this takes nothing away from Madison De Berlais who put in a sparkling performance to win the race, and is surely a horse of immense ability. Well done to Mr Pipe and all his team.