Thursday 17 January

Come on Haydock! Hang in There!!! After an inspection this morning, they have decided to have another look again at the same time tomorrow to assess if they will be fit to race on Saturday (San Telm entered). It did not get as cold as forecast with them last night and they would be raceable this morning, so there is a slim hope it will be on! The forecast now points to Taunton struggling with a heavy bout of snow tomorrow, but that snow looks like it could stop its trip westward just short of Haydock, so we might just get lucky! Everything is crossed! Smart Exit will be ridden again today. This is the first time since his win that he has been sat on, as he was found to have slighlty injured a joint. The offending area was medicated on Monday after a couple of weeks rest, and has really improved so he should be cantering again next week! Towcester look like being unable to race on Sunday, and if they do the ground will be very testing, so Tannerman will miss his spin over fences there, and be entered in Fakenham (Thursday) and Doncaster (Friday) next week. A great run by Ringa Bay yesterday, the winner was a class above, but he ran a blinder in an ultra competitive handicap to finish third. Also at Newbury it was great to see Kikos come through his Hunters Chase OK. Pulled up after the cross fence, he was always going to struggle to see out the 2m 6f+ trip, but he jumped great for his young jockey and no harm done!