Don Cossack Needs A Run Before Gold Cup

We are just coming out of the Christmas festival and all my horses have come out of it well. We ended up having a great week with plenty of winners so we’re all happy.

The next big festival will be Cheltenham in March so in another few weeks we’ll be getting geared up for that. There’s a few good weekends at Leopardstown ahead in between including the Irish Champion Hurdle and we’ll have plenty of runners going there.

Don Cossack
With Don Cossack, we are thinking of going to Thurles for the Kinloch Brae. He came out of the King George very well but I’d be a little apprehensive going straight to the Gold Cup off the back of a fall. If he jumped the first two at the Gold Cup a little nervous it could be all over, so it may be best to give him that run first.

Horses are very fit this time of year so we’ll just keep ticking him over. Whether he would have won the race or not had he stayed up I don’t know, but he definitely would’ve been close as he was running a good race.

Tombstone
Tombstone ran very well when 2nd at Leopardstown over Christmas but I just felt he didn’t get the luck on the day. If things had worked out a bit differently he could’ve won but that’s horse racing and he was beat by a very good horse. All being well he’ll go for the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown in February.

Willie Mullins has gone off with a lot of firepower and I have plenty of horses for Grade Ones, so I was disappointed to let one like that slip away to be honest. But that’s the name of the game, it could easily happen to Willie the next day, that day it happened to us. But we had 2 Grade Ones for Christmas so I can’t really complain!

Prince of Scars
Prince of Scars will be entered for the Galmoy Hurdle at Gowran Park and for the Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham. Wherever the ground is softest he will probably go – all being well it will be Cheltenham but if the ground is too good he mightn’t go.

The Week Ahead
This week we have Bright New Dawn entered for the Dan Moore Memorial Handicap at Fairyhouse on Sunday and he is in good form.

He ran a good race last time out at Navan behind Felix Younger and he definitely has a chance.

We also have Roi Du Mee going back to Tramore for the rescheduled At The Races Chase which he’s won twice. We were looking forward to that on New Year’s Day but things are a bit up in the air at the moment with so much racing being called off. We’ll keep him entered and see how things go.

The weather has been a bit of a headache at the yard as it can be stop start when you’re running the horses, but it’s the same for all trainers and we are probably luckier than most that we haven’t missed a day in the gallop.