JANUARY is always a quiet month in Ditcheat. The horses get their flu jabs and have an easy time, and the boss takes a well-earned holiday in the sun.

The quiet period on the racetrack, is not reflected in life in the yard however. The cold weather that is associated at this time of year gives us a headache and many freezing cold mornings and late evenings are spent in the back of our trusty old “big red” Ford Ranger, gritting the roads to and from the gallops.

The lower volume of race meetings attended by Harry and myself gives us a chance not only to shovel salt and grit, but gives us time to catch up on the day-to-day maintenance on the gallops with tonnes of sand getting moved from one end back to the other.

But out of the gloom there have been a few winter warmers and one highlight of mine was seeing Overland Flyer make a super smooth debut victory at Taunton. A big son of Westerner owned by Mr Colm Donlon, Overland Flyer was given time to develop and came to us as a graduate of the Jack Barber academy having won two point-to-points.

But he has repaid his owner’s kindness by romping to victory by a whopping 22 lengths and is certainly one to get excited about in the coming months.

One of the shortest-priced favourites of the entire season must have been Romain De Senam at Leicester when he was sent off a 1/20 shot and he made no mistake, thankfully, to justify the short odds.

During the summer, Ian Fogg, a great friend of Paul’s and a very successful owner courtesy of high profile wins like Vicente, decided to set up a new syndicate called Ditcheat Thoroughbreds.

The syndicate has grown from strength to strength with the flagship horses being Coillte Lass and Marracudja, who will contest today’s Grade 2 Lightening Novice Chase at Doncaster.

Last Sunday, we had a owners’ day for the syndicate members who came and looked at their horses parade and a lunch down in the pub. It was great to get a good turnout and lovely to see the enthusiasm of Mr Fogg’s yielding such great results.

Monsieur Co, the syndicate’s newest recruit from France, had just won in Wincanton a few days prior to the parade and help bolster the already impressive strike rate for the syndicate.

Last weekend was scheduled to have been a busy one racing wise with three runners being aimed the three meetings. Unfortunately Jack Frost reared his ugly head and we lost the Grade 1 action at Ascot and the meeting at Taunton.

While those meetings were getting inspected, I was on route up the M6 in the heated cab of the horsebox with three runners bound for Haydock.

The highly likeable Politologue finished second in the big novice chase, while Irving didn’t read the script and took and uncharacteristic fall at the fourth hurdle.

Thankfully he and Harry [Skelton] got to their feet, while Virak ran his usual gutsy consistent race to finish fourth behind the runaway Bristol De Mai. A disappointing day but it is nice to back on track with these Saturday horses.

SALES

Early last week, I went to Doncaster Bloodstock Sales with the late Graham Roach dispersal sale. A total of 14 horses were offered up and a wide range from the classy 146-rated All Set To Go to Ruben Cotter to a selection of unraced three-year-olds.

It was sad to see all these horses go and see the end of an era as Mr Roach was a massive supporter of jump racing over the years and his famous red and white colours were carried to success by many top class horses.

It was a busy day up at the sales but it was then back to the racetrack and things are definitely starting to heat up again.

This weekend brings Cheltenham trials day and Sky Bet Chase from Doncaster and the volume of entries and runners from the yard are increasing.

For more information on this weekend’s team please check out Paul’s betfair blog at https://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/paul-nicholls/.