Saturday 27th May 2017

It’s been a busy week and we still have a couple of runners to go, today at Chester and Uttoxeter tomorrow.

Huge congratulation to Rod Trow who is Dr Newland’s assistant trainer and has helped us out plenty over the years. It was time to say thank you so we let Rod ride Trafalgar Rock at Warwick on Thursday in their annual charity race. I’m delighted to say Rod and Trafalgar Rock won the competitive event! It’s fair to say Rod was very pleased and plenty of champagne was drank that evening.

Mountain Rescue didn’t have much luck in the Whitsun Cup a Sandown, he was unbalanced on the turn for home and got himself in a right muddle hitting every divot on the racecourse. It just didn’t happen for him on the night.

Aldrin makes his debut for us at Chester today in the 1:55. I’ve always wanted a runner at Chester so we’re really looking forward to the day at this lovely racecourse. Aldrin or Buzz as we call him future is over hurdles but he showed good form on the level for Godolphin. This is his first run for 244 days and he meets some smart horses with big entries. Aldrin won’t disgrace himself and I’m sure he’ll give his owners a great day out.

We struck at the Doncaster sales and purchased a very exciting mare called Ilovemints. Her bumper form is very strong and she had genuine excuses for two runs in between her win. Ilovemints was a good 3^rd carrying a penalty when last seen and ran on going that was too quick for her. She has plenty of size and winning mare’s novice races through the Winter won’t be a problem. I hope we have a real chance of running in the new mare’s novice at the Cheltenham Festival with Ilovemints.

Ilovemints will be trained by David Pipe and touch wood she’ll take us to the next level.

We also purchased Trigger Nichol privately before the sale. He wasn’t bred for bumpers, if you take out the winner on his last start he was only beat a few lengths. Trigger Nichol breeding is linked to Fine Parchment, Fundamentalist & Barters Hill. It doesn’t get much better than that and he should excel when seeing a hurdle.

Both horses will run through the jumps season proper and shares are available.