It is a beautiful day here in Newmarket and we are daring to believe that the sun really will be making an appearance here next week after a little more rain tomorrow. The Grand National should should be exciting to watch this afternoon and the winner will need to have a lot of courage. I have had a tenative stab at the Gordon Elliott trained Tiger Roll.
Mudallel ran a race full of encouragement last night. He was caught wide from his bad draw and ran fresh in the early stages of the race but I was really pleased with how he finished off in the latter part of the race. I am looking forward to getting him back on turf.
We have two runners today. Highcastle is stepping up to 1m4f for the first time in the 4:15 at Lingfield. I have put some headgear on him as I don’t think he fully concentrates at times. It is only a small field contest and the favourite is the obvious winner of the race on paper as he proved he stayed the trip when winning last time. Sauchiehall Street has shown ability at a low level and steps up to 1m4f for the first time. Diablery and Rum Ration need to improve like us, for the step up in trip. Highcastle should enjoy this trip although he has further strengthening to do and he should improve as the year goes on. I hope he can run with credit and give us something to work on for the rest of the season.
Manjaam returns at Wolverhampton this evening. It is a track he has won at as a three year old but the trip is an unknown. He had a nice break over the Winter and I hope he can show us more this year than he did in 2017. He will come on for his seasonal debut but I hope he can shape with promise in what is a competitive contest. The match fit Ocean Of Love has shown plenty of ability and if she settles better in the early stages of the race she could turn form around with Bear Valley who beat her last time. Star Of The East had some very smart form last year and is to be feared and the majority of the other opponents have all got smart form on their records but need to recapture it if they are to be competitive this evening.