Off and Running

Posted October 23, 2022

23/10/22

The winners count increased again when Snowy Clouds got his long awaited win under rules when taking the two mile Novice Chase at Market Rasen last Saturday. He’s come out of the race well and hopefully fences have been the making of him.

Snowy Clouds winning at Market Rasen

Unfortunately our luck wasn’t in at Carlisle on Thursday as the rain came and did not stop – quite the contrast from the previous week! With our two horses, Rubytwo and Headscarf Lil, in the last and second races meant that the ground had changed to soft and conditions had become a lot more testing than anticipated. We do love “real jumping ground” but only when we’ve sent horses who we know love it too!

Tomorrow (Monday) we see five more horses making their seasonal debut. The ground is good to soft at the moment with a little bit of rain forecast, so hopefully it’ll be nice, safe jumping ground.

First up in the 1:40 Novice Hurdle over two miles we have Maughold Head “I am hoping he will have grown up a lot and benefited from those two runs in the spring.”

Maughold Head and Brian Hughes

2:10 we have Hard Iron who has been disappointing so far in his career, but hoping he improves for handicapping. 2:40 Tfou makes his debut over fences, “A real cruiser at home, I was pleased with the manner in which he finished off his races last year and I think he will improve significantly this season. I haven’t lost faith in him, he stays well with two and a half plus being his trip.”

The initial plan was to have one more run over hurdles but he’s schooled really well over fences and hopefully, like Snowy Clouds, they will be the making of him.

Hard Iron & Conor Rabbitt

The one everyone has been waiting for… Nells Son is making his chasing debut in the 3:15 Handicap Chase over two miles. He was going to go to Carlisle on the 13th but the ground was too dry. He’s been schooling very nicely over fences with his usual rider Danny McMenamin, who says “He seems well at home and seems in good form schooling. He has jumped well and I’m looking forward to him”. We will get tomorrow out of the way and hope for a good, clear round before we start thinking of his future targets.

Nells Son & Danny McMenamin

The final race on the card is the 4:25 National Hunt Flat Race in which we are represented by The Kalooki Kid for Eddie Melville and Kenny Haughey. We always have a good clutch of bumper horses and this one is no different, he had a lot of education at home last year and has been for a racecourse gallop. We are 9 winners from 26 runners in bumpers at Ayr over the last five seasons and with Ayr again on Saturday we can’t wait to start seeing all the hard work and patience pay off.

The Kalooki Kid

We have had a strong start to the season so far and long may it continue. Entries for the next Ayr meeting will be made tomorrow, so keep an eye on our pages to follow preparations.

Nicky Richards Racing