Headly's Bridge - 2nd at Leicester

Headly’s Bridge improved again to finish a good second at Leicester in a class 3 handicap hurdle.  Gerard Tumelty gave him another good ride.  It was a shame he ran against a horse that appeared to have a stone in hand, especially as the race was worth £10,000!

We look forward to finding another nice race for him and hopefully going one better for his owner Penelope Bridle.

Benozzo Gozzoli - 2nd at Folkestone

Named after the great Italian artist, Benozzo Gozzoli came 2^nd at Folkestone over 2m 5f in a handicap hurdle.  In 12 previous attempts over jumps the best he has finished was 4^th of 5 over hurdles.  In his last two completed runs over jumps he was beaten 68 lengths and 65 lengths.

This was his first run for us after seven months off and he ran a stormer to finish 2^nd in a very tough race.  We didn’t know what trip he wanted or what ground he liked.  Even his jockey Andrew Thornton, who had ridden him before in races, didn’t know and if you were a form expert and looked through all his races you wouldn’t know!  We decided to run him over 2 ½ miles and the ground was so testing that half the field had had enough with over a mile to go.  Ben was going as well as the winner at the last hurdle down the back and they were the only ones in it.  For me, it was the bravest performance by a horse from our yard this season.  I wish now that I had run him over 2 miles as he really emptied out in the home straight and Andrew did a wonderful job nursing him home to keep 2^nd without beating him up.

          We will respect the fact that Ben gave everything and give him time to recover and we will try and find a race over 2m on better ground.  He is such a genuine horse and a gentleman in every way.  I would love it if we could improve him more and get his owner, John Powell, in the winners’ enclosure again!