Fine second place at Kelso

You know, sometimes you can be so close to horses that you start to doubt your own opinion.

Take Shades of Midnight, who ran a gallant second beaten just over length on Saturday at Kelso to Paul Nichols' smart hurdler Silsol. Watching from the stands, Shady looked to have run another cracker, showing improved form if not quite winning. After all, Silsol had been placed in the Grade 2 Rendelsham hurdle at Haydock last time out, and is a former winner of the Welsh Champion hurdle.

Shades of Midnight is only a 6yr old, and he's not yet actually reached his 6th birthday, so has plenty of time on his hand. A quick glance at the summary of the race provided by experts of The Racing Post (RPR) and Timeform certainly confirmed our view that he had progressed once again in this outing. Tackling a trip in excess of 3 miles for the first time and on ground as quick as he'd like it (good to soft), we're over the moon with the performance quite frankly. The handicapper has raised him a further 4lb onto OR148 and he's verging into the territory of condition events and Class 1 handicaps.

Shades of Midnight (Garry) & Paper Roses (Lyall)

Sad news

Our yard was a quieter place last week when one of our promising young hurdlers sadly passed away.

Bearskin had just had a couple of runs for the yard in novice hurdles, and with a rating of OR96 we had a 2 mile handicap hurdle on a sound surface in mind for him in the early part of next season. But unfortunately, the 5 yr old gelding suffered complications arising from an intestinal condition, and despite the best medical attention, could not be saved.