Thursday 16th May, 2024

Totterdown (pictured) did not appreciate the sunshine in Wales before his race yesterday and although the ground was safe, he excels on softer ground.  He and the eventual runner up went a sprinters gallops for the first mile and after a mistake down the back, Finn Lambert sensibly looked after him.  Although he has run well at Newbury in the past, he appears to be best going right-handed but as Ffos Las looked like the last chance to run on safe ground we let him take his chance.

Totterdown will now have a happy retirement and we will hopefully find him an excellent home in the coming weeks.  He looked wonderful in the preliminaries yesterday and is still as enthusiastic as ever about life and looks half his age.  He has won six races and had some excellent runs in defeat and will always be a legend to many.

We have three runners at Uttoxeter on Saturday evening as long as the ground suits.  Mattie Ross runs in the conditional jockeys handicap hurdle at 5.20pm with Finn Lambert onboard.  The combination were an excellent second over course and distance recently and hopefully will put up another good performance here.

Picanha makes his chasing debut if the rains come in the three mile handicap chase.  He has run some excellent races over hurdles for us and hopefully this will be a good introduction for his steeplechasing career.

Methodtothemagic has had a winter break and returns in the two and a half mile handicap hurdle run at 8.33pm.  She will be the last of Finn’s three rides for us on the evening and he won on her last year at Southwell.  Hopefully this will be a good starting point for a summer career.