Hope Road ran a good race but just got edged out – frustrating and my luck is out at the moment. He’s at least a half decent horse, and he’s running fairly consistently now. He’ll go away for the year and come back in the autumn – he still has his maiden status and he really ought to be able to pick a race up then. Tom intends to send him chasing as he thinks he’s a solid jumper.
I’m currently in the Newmarket area, and I spent this morning on the gallops watching Winker and a few of the 2 year olds go through. Winker worked with Western Art and he did it extremely well – he’s a really striking horse. I think he’ll go straight for the Guineas. Most of our 2yos are only in light work at the moment, the exception being Skid Solo who will probably be the first out. I didn’t watch Bouguereau gallop but he did look exceptionally well in himself – a definite pick of the paddock. The general sense is that he is definitely a nice horse but unlikely to be top class – I can live with that. A possible next race for him would be the Feilden stakes, although 9f is a little on the short side.
After watching work with Pete we went down to the New England Stud to take a look at the two fillies I bought from the Sangster dispersal. Both are well bred, one by Pivotal and the other by Rock of Gibraltar. The ROG is a little plain at the moment, but I could look at the Pivotal all day – a real eye catcher at the moment.
I may have two runners on Saturday – King’s Head at Lingfield and Mon Michel at Aintree. I’ll update closer to the time.