Thursday 25th August 2016

We have a runner this evening at Sedgefield, Trafalgar Rock takes his chance in the 6:30. Charlie Hammond takes the ride.

Before a brief on Trafalgar Rock, Gran Maestro finished 2^nd at Southwell on Tuesday. Despite the finishing position he never went a yard and looked after himself. Granny hasn’t been the same since being brought down at Worcester. The horse requires a good break now and that would hopefully put him back in the right frame of mind.

Northern trainer Peter Winks claimed Gran Maestro after the race so he’s off to pastures new. Granny has been an incredible horse for us, a £10,000 private purchase, won the most valuable summer hurdle race of the year in 2015 and in total £35,000 of prize money. That’s some return.

It was time for us to move Granny on however and we wish Mr Winks all the very best with Gran Maestro.

A change of jockeys for Trafalgar Rock this evening, Sam Twiston Davies wasn’t available as he’s at Fontwell, we were thinking about putting our sponsored jockey, Charlie Hammond up anyhow and making use of his 7lb claim before we knew Sam couldn’t ride. Once we had that news it was fairly obvious to give Charlie the leg up.

Charlie rides Trafalgar Rock at home and had done a lot of schooling on the horse. Trafalgar Rock shoulders a 12lb double winner’s penalty, Charlie’s claim gets rid of one of those. We still give weight away too all runners though.

Miro & Wazowski look the main dangers, the Gordon Elliott trained horse looks to be improving and his Irish form sets the standard of the race. We’ll learn a bit more about Trafalgar Rock this evening and hopefully he can run well again.