I’d Love To Have Don Cossack Back For The Gold Cup

I have a few early season runners at Perth this week.

Perth
It’s been a lucky venue for us and we’ve had plenty of winners there, in fact I trained my first ever winner there. I won’t have as many horses as I usually have for it this year but we will try to support the track as much as we can.

It’s a bit of a journey up to the track but the girls and my team have it down to a fine art. The horses travel up to Belfast first, that takes about 2 and quarter hours on the road. Then it’s another 3 hours across on the ferry and another 3 and a half hours up the road. It may not be the easiest of treks but it could be worse.

The first time I was ever there was when I first became a trainer, it’s a flat right handed track and I remember the owners being looked after very well and I have fond memories of it.

Summer Plans
It’ll be business as usual over the summer, I’ll probably have 60-70 horses running and I hope we get 30-35 winners before the winter horses come back in. We’ll be busy but we’re looking forward to it.

Royal Ascot is just around the corner and although I’m not sure if I’ll have a runner this year, hopefully in time we could get a winner there. It’s something I’ve yet to do so we’ll play that one by ear and maybe one day it’ll be ticked off the list.

It’s still a quiet time of year for me and although the Derby is on the horizon my expertise is in the National Hunt game so I’ll not pretend to know what I’m talking about by picking you a winner! It’s best for me to take a watching brief and maybe I’ll have a better idea closer to the off.

After last season, it’s good to get some early winners on the board. We’ve already got off to a good start this time round with 5 winners and you always look to better last season’s tally.

If I could train over 100 winners again this season I’d be thrilled.

Jason Maguire
It was sad to see Jason Maguire hang up the saddle this week. He’s been plagued with injuries and had a bit of a trapped nerve that was causing him a lot of trouble, so it had to be done. But he’s had a great career as a jockey riding over 1000 winners and he was a good man to have on my side. I’m not sure if he fancies a go at this training lark but he’s a got a great new job with Paul and Clare Rooney so we’ll see how that goes.

The Don
Don Cossack is back with his owners at the minute on his holidays as I like to call it. I’d love to have him back cantering in October with a view to having him back for the Gold Cup, but it’s a day-to-day thing and everything has to go right between now and then.