Shufoog at Warwick & a Blast from the Past
Four Mile Bridge ran just about OK at Leicester yesterday to be beaten a little over five lengths, albeit still too free early on and he did his best to hang out on the turn in; we will work on all of this and he remains a horse capable of winning in this class when everything is right.
This evening we take Shufoog to Warwick for their Mare's Handicap Hurdle; she won a similar, although perhaps not quite as competitive a race as this evening's, on the course & over the distance at the beginning of last October witness the video here; it is not particularly easy to assess her four subsequent performances apart from saying that she ran a really excellent race to be a close up and going on third at Lingfield in the middle of March on her only run on the flat since winning at Warwick; she might have run to 101, 105 and around 98 on the three subsequent hurdle runs at Wincanton twice and Huntingdon but all three were in better grades; but visually her performances did not really match the rating she might have run to; which, coupled with the way the string has been over the last three weeks, makes it difficult to know how generous the 14 and 16 to One currently available about her tomorrow is.
Finally one or two guys might remember Ridgeway Hawk who won three races for us in 2011 and 2012 and who became something of a Southwell specialist under both Lee Newnes and Robert Havlin; here he is last Saturday attending the wedding of his retirement owner in Northumberland; a really happy sight.