Fine second by Tomahawk Wood at Newcastle

Yes indeed!

 We were all delighted at the race run on hurdling debut by Tomahawk Wood. You know, handicaps are different, but for one of our string making a debut in any of the racing formats (bumper, hurdle, chase and so on) we prepare, plan and execute to obtain the optimum result for the horse. We cannot control the ability level of the opposition or how other horses will run. But what we do have control over is our own horse, and that he/she runs to his best on the day.

Such was the case yesterday, and as previewed by ourselves on Friday, we faced a couple of horses with impressive form for the grade. Callum gave Tomahawk Wood the perfect ride, and we were slightly fortunate that The Don's Tarlan didn't run as well as he had done previously. Tomahawk Wood still finished 20l (and 7lb) behind Kingswell Theatre, but travelled well to 2 out, jumped fine in the main, if a bit safely and thoroughly enjoyed the occasion.
This 5yr old has many, more important, races to come in his career.......fingers crossed.  

What's next?

Well, between now and the first week in January, there's a fair smattering of NH meetings in the North.

And we've got several horses just itching for a run. Our race planning team have selected races in which we hope to be competitive, which are scattered here and there. I mean, don't expect us to have 3 horses turn up at Musselburgh one day, we're more likely to have 1 or 2 runners per meeting.

Oh well, there goes the chance of a life changing 'yankee'. Talk of life changing 'yankees' reminds me of Barney Curley - and thanks to ATR for repeating the hilarious few minutes when he took apart presenter Luke Harvey and expert John McCririck at Plumpton one afternoon. You can get the gist of it on YouTube, but this clip had us all in stritches last Friday evening.   

Anyway, we'll provide more updates - including Dodlandswise, especially for Lucky Dave - as these races crop up.

Meantime, we hope Santa is good to you!

Fiona leads Belle in a race to the top, apparently