That Friday Feeling !!

A great day for the blog yesterday with two winners from two selections.

It's been a while coming but the Nicholls stable is finally starting to hit it's usual heights of previous years. The stable have now equalled January's total of 7 winners from exactly half the runners (22) and we still have 18 days to go.
In February 2013 Nicholls had 22 winners from 79 runners and if he keeps up this strike rate he may even be able to surpass that.

The blog too has had a few winners over the last week following on from our 12/1 winner in the Skybet Chase :
Sonny The One - 1st - 11/4
Just Acting - PU
Stilletto - Fell "travelling strongly in narrow lead when fell three out" - 6/1
Baoulet Delaroque - 1st - 13/8(advised at 2/1)
Lifeboat Mona - 1st - 6/4(advised at 2/1)
Mister Kalanisi - 4th
Black Thunder - 6th
Rock On Oscar - 1st - 3/1
Baoulet Delaroque - 1st - 15/8

There are no runners for the Nicholls stable today - however he has 24 entered up on Saturday and Sunday and it will be interesting to see in which races some of them are placed.

Interestingly Barry Geraghty opted for the J P McManus owned Blazer in the Betfair hurdle at Newbury on Saturday as opposed to Nicholls Modus and the McManus second string is surprisingly to be ridden by Nick Schofield and not Sam Twiston Davies who partners Willie Mullins Buiseness Sivola.

Dan Skelton runs three today - one at Kempton and two at Wetherby where Harry Skelton travels to and I will just concentrate on those tow today as I'm off to get a haircut shortly.

Wetherby - Heavy, soft in places on home bend and straight
1.20 Cobra De Mai is said to be an interesting prospect for the season and is a chaser for the future. He started his campaign for team Skelton at Warwick in a juvenile maiden hurdle over 2m on soft where he was said to have been too keen and fresh when 5th of 12. That was a slightly disappointing return and a better run was probably expected next time out at Newbury in a Class 4 juvenile hurdle over 2m 69y on soft going - however he came up against a useful recruit from the Nicholls stable in Clan Des Obeaux who won and has since run well in the Grade 2 Triumph Hurdle trial at Cheltenham and has been allocated a hurdle rating of 144h and John Ferguson's Jaleo who has also won since.
Cobra De Mai drops down in grade here to Class 5 in this 5 runner field and he should be difficult to beat.

3.35 Walking In The Air joined the stable after winning a point to point in Ireland. He then won a bumper at Warwick in a good fashion. He is a scopey horse that could be anything. He prefers soft going and the stable seemed quite excited by his prospects prior to his return at Exeter in November in a Class 3 NH novice hurdle over 2m 5f 135y on good to soft going. In that race, after being hampered early on he was ridden approaching three out but was soon beaten and finished last of the 5 finishers which must have been disappointing. He drops down 2f in distance today following his 101 day break and he also drops down to Class 4. Hopefully the stable will have ironed out the problem that he may have had and he should be capable of putting up a bold show.

Both horses should run well today - however they are just too short in the betting to get involved for blog purposes and I look forward to the weekend runners.

Good Luck !