Three to follow from the weekend: 5th, 6th & 7th January…

As usual during the Xmas/New Year period (Happy New year by the way!) the free blog goes into a little bit of a mini hibernation period… with the NTF members area and my non-racing life (I do have one… sort of!!) taking up most of my time…

But the festive period is now, thankfully, firmly behind us and I’m ready to roll with the normal NTF swing of things… and despite relatively slim pickings on the National Hunt front over the weekend (🤨) I do have a ‘3 to follow…‘ to kick start the New Year here on the free blog, as well as some news on me finally dipping my toes back into the ownership waters…

Let’s get to those ‘3 to follow…’ runners first…

. 

Three to follow from the weekend: 5th, 6th & 7th January…

.

GARDE DES CHAMPS (L Russell)

Faller in a Class 3 Novice Handicap Chase – 1.20 Musselburgh (Friday 5th) 

Lucinda Russell picked up this 8yo from Keith Dalgleish yard when he decided to take a break from the training game and go live in the mountains (or whatever he’s doing instead of training racehorses!!) and she wasted little time in getting a wind-op into the gelding and sending him over fences…

This run at Musselburgh was his third spin over the larger obstacles and although he’s yet to win over fences, and failed to even complete here, there have been glimpses of chasing ability from him (no surprise given he’s by Robin Des Champs out of a Presenting mare) and providing he’s no worse for the fall at the weekend he should be opening his chase account before seasons end…

He never looked overly happy in the early to middle part of this race but in fairness that was probably down to the soft ground he met with here (he had been declared a non-runner 3 times previously on Soft ground and finished a well-beaten 4th of 5 the only previous time he lined up on Soft) but he was starting to motor as they turned into the straight and had he not taken a pearler of a fall 4-out he would surely have been in the mix come the business end…

Garde Des Champs actually caught my eye on chase debut at Wetherby on the 18th of October, when he finished a staying on third behind the Josh Guerriero/Oliver Greenall trained Homme Public, a race that has been working out very well since and a race where the first five home all posted strong Proform Speed figures. Indeed the figure posted by Garde Des Champs very much hinted that he’s a good way better than his current mark of OR 115… and had he stayed on his feet here I’d be relatively confident he would have went on to prove he was indeed a horse a good way better than his mark…

To add to the above I also had a look at how Lucinda Russell does with her horses that FELL last time out… and uncovered the following…

L Russell | C3 or less Chases (fields of 10 or less ) | 4yo-9yo’s | FELL LTO in a Chase

17/63 | 27% S/R | +£30.04 LSP – W&P 27/63 | 43% S/R

42% above exp

…so some solid stats that suggest they can get a horse’s confidence back after a fall, straight off the bat…

.

 HASTON CLERMONT (N Williams)

1st in a Class 5 Novice Handicap Chase – 3.50 Wincanton (Saturday 6th) 

Looks every inch a staying chaser and this big robust Coastal Path gelding has really kicked on now he’s been sent chasing and been asked to tackle staying trips…

This win here at Wincanton was his second win on the bounce, backing up his win at Lingfield on the 11th of December, and both wins have seen him tackle the longest trips of his fledgling career (2m7.5f at Lingfield and then 3m1.5f here at Wincanton)…

Trainer Noel Williams looks to have campaigned him over hurdles last season with nothing more than the aim of getting an extremely workable handicap mark to go to war with over fences this season, and so far it looks like job very much done… and with plenty more still to come…

.

ROCK MY WAY (S Hosie)

2nd in a Class 3 Novice Handicap Chase – 1.15 Plumpton (Sunday 7th) 

I think it was a smart move to go chasing with this 6yo as he’d probably reached his limited over Hurdles and had also dropped to an appealing mark after a few below-par efforts…

The tall, rangy son of Getaway jumped well, if a little careful at times, for the majority of this contest and he looked much more like the horse that he promised to be when he won the Grade 2 Ballymore Novice Hurdle at the Cheltenham Trails Day last January… 

This switch to fences off the back of a wind-op (and the application of a tongue-tie) looks to have woken up the racehorse in him again and I’d be very hopeful of his trainer – Syd Hosie – getting a win into him on one of his next 3 chase starts, especially if keeping him to the 2m4f-2m5f sort of trips… 

S Hosie | Chasers on 1st – 4th Chase starts | 2m4f-2m5f

6/21 | 29% S/R | +£68.65 BFLSP – W&P 10/21 | 48% S/R

168% above exp

He’s a well handicapped and unexposed type who should improve for fences given his breeding, and with a wind-op and this first chasing effort on the board very much looks like one to keep firmly on the radar…

---

Back in the ownership game…

…and back with an INSTANT BANG 💥 as well!

Yes, after many years out of the racehorse ownership side of things I’ve finally decided – after much badgering from my good pal Josh Wright, who is one of the guys behind the Racing To Profit Syndicate – to jump back in and pick up a share in TWO National Hunt horses!

I’ll talk about both horses in more detail in future posts (in fact I’ll dedicate a blog post entirely to this and not just hook it onto the bottom of the regular Tuesday posts) but the horses in question are…

BLAZING SOLDIER (Mark Walford)

DIXIE COWBOY (Sam England)

The Blazing Soldier syndicate is all full but there are still some places available in the DIXIE COWBOY syndicate… although not that many as they have been filling up rapidly… VERY rapidly!

…and why have they been filling up rapidly?

Well that’s because Blazing Soldier only went and WON on his racecourse debut at Newcastle on Saturday!! 😲😲😲

He literally won a race before I had a chance to tell anyone I was in the syndicate!! (I’ve been visiting family in Scotland so I’ve been massively time limited in the past week and a bit…)

Was at my mum’s on Saturday… was getting ready to head out the door to meet my Uncle and Cousin to go watch Elgin City V Stranraer (watch… or more accurately… FREEZE my b*ll*cks off 🥶🥶🥶) and BLAZING SOLDIER was about to make his debut in the 1.40 at Newcastle… and I’m like..

‘I’ll head out after I watch this race… I just purchased a share in one of the runners a couple days ago… oh yeah, forgot to say… I’m back in the ownership world again!… anyway flick on ITV Racing for me please 😎’...

Then it was a case of…

‘He’s giving those flights some good air time… great stuff, he’ll make into a smashing chaser next season, that’s a good sign…’

Which then turned to…

‘Oof… he running blinder on debut here… still right there turning in… he might fade over the last couple… first run for a long time… since his P2P days…’ 

Which quickly escalated to…

‘GO ON BLAZING MY BOY!! COME ON SON!! DIG IN BOY!! COME ON!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!! YA DANCER!!!!’

‘OK, I’m off… I’ll probably have a couple drinks after the game, if you feed the dogs at around 5pm that would be great…’

(Mrs NTF was at her sisters for a couple days at this point, dogs came with me to my mum’s)

So yeah… I’m back in the ownership game and back with a bang!

Go on the Blazing Soldier!

I’ll of course have regular updates here on the NTF Blog with regards to both horses… and I’ll have plenty to post as well, the communication from the guys at Racing To Profit is absolutely top notch! I knew it would be as I’ve talked to Josh plenty about the RTP horses and the syndicate in general before I finally jumped on board, but even still, I’m seriously impressed with the level of communication that has been provided…

This was the update members received the morning after the race… 

…which was obviously the day after THIS performance 👇👇👇

The future is bright… nah, the future is BLAZING! 🔥🔥🔥

And I’ll keep you all updated on both the Blazing Soldier AND the Dixie Cowboy journey in the weeks and months ahead…

Cheer – Ben (NTF)

p.s. I’m in the process of pulling together a free guide for all NTF Free list members… that will be available shortly… it may or may not be concentrating on the 2024 Cheltenham Festival 🤔

If you are already on the free list then keep a look out for that… and if you are NOT yet on the free NTF list then head here and stick your name in the form>>>

And you can flick back through all previous NTF Blog Posts HERE>>>