STAFF member Amy Clark will be taking part in the Keagan Kirkby Memorial Charity race at Wincanton in aid of Racing Welfare on October 27.

Amy is 18 years old and joined us full time in March.  She has ambitions of having a licence one day and this is the perfect way to get her first experience on the track while raising some money for a good cause.  She has never done anything like this before but is getting fit and having some jockey coaching from Rodi Greene.  

The race is being run in honour of Keagan, who was a member of staff for Paul Nicholls but sadly passed away earlier this year following a fall in a point to point.  The whole day at Wincanton is being run in his memory with various events going on and it is great to be supporting it.

I know the Racing Welfare team has been working closely with Keagan’s family, friends and all the team at Paul Nicholls yard and they do a great job supporting everyone associated with racing. Amy has made a great start in her fundraising effort but would welcome any donations through the link below if you would like to support her;

https://racingwelfare.enthuse.com/pf/amy-clark

Meanwhile, last week was very quiet on the racecourse for us and it will continue to be this week too with jumps racing still a little limited, before things start getting going a bit more.

We have had some rain at Pond House in the last few days but not nearly as much as some places around the country!  The flat meeting at Leicester on Monday was abandoned the day before due to waterlogging with 72mm of rain falling in a relatively short space of time and a lot of courses with fixtures coming up have had dramatic changes in going descriptions.  

We made entries at Warwick for Tuesday the other day with the ground described as good to firm. I see this morning they have changed to good to soft following rain over the weekend and conditions will soften further with quite a bit more rain to come before racing.  

We started this week with one runner at Sedgefield on Monday afternoon, where  Chemical Warfare returned to chasing after finishing fourth over hurdles last time out.  He has had a fruitful summer and prior to today already had two chase wins to his name in 2024. It was a long way for him to travel but it was made really worthwhile when he won by two and a half lengths ridden by Jack Tudor. It was also a great opportunity for his owners who are based in the North to go and watch him run.

Our only other runners this week will be on Friday, if at all, at Worcester.  We have Micronormous entered in the 2m4f maiden hurdle and Mr Tambourine Man in the handicap hurdle over three miles.  

The weekend looks quiet with just the one jumps fixture at Market Rasen on Saturday but keep checking the Daily News on the website for the latest information on all that is going on at Pond House.

At home while the ‘winter’ horses are progressing nicely in their training we have topped up our woodchip gallop and are just finishing ‘turning over’ the sand on the Wexford Sand Gallop.  We use the sand a lot for the early work when horses return to galloping from a break.  It is slow, steady cantering to build up their fitness and then they do more speed work on the woodchip. 

Racing column by Dave Pipe