WITH the new year out of the way, it’s a good time to take a look back at the first half of the season and reflect. On December 29th, we reached 100 winners for the season, courtesy of Clic Work at Doncaster, a Grade 1 in the shape of Irving in November and over £1.3 million in prize money has all helped in ending the first half of the season on top of the trainers’ table.

There have been many noticeable performances over the past couple of weeks, with my personal highlight being Capitaine in the Grade 2 Supreme Trial at Ascot. A horse I am lucky enough to ride every day, he showed his liking for good ground when making all under Sam Twiston-Davies to win comfortably.

This weekend, ground depending, he might line-up for the Grade 1 Tolworth novice hurdle at Sandown and hopefully he can continue to improve and do the business!

There were two noticeable performances from two charges who graduated from the point-to-point field, Give Me A Copper and Topofthegame. Give Me A Copper, a strong horse by Presenting, joined us before the summer, after winning the point-to-point bumper in Cork last Easter. He made his stable debut at Exeter and made no mistake in creating a big impression by scoring by a 14 lengths. He is a hugely exciting horse to look forward to.

Speaking of huge things, it’s the perfect time to mention Topofthegame. This horse is massive and came to us after winning a point-to-point in Belclare last March for the Monbeg Syndicate.

He made a big appearance to the track when winning a hot Ascot novice hurdle in his stable debut. He hit the front having jumped and travelled strongly but having gone on to win his race he ran green before finding more close home to win. Both these horses graduated from the Irish pointing scene and it gives me great pleasure to see them being so promising.

BUSY TIMES

Another ex-pointer to join the yard and do well is Coillte Lass. She won her two starts for the yard and went to Taunton for a listed mares hurdle. We were worried about the shorter journey of two miles, but she showed a good turn of foot turning for home, and quickly put the race to bed to score from the short-priced favourite. She is a rapidly improving mare and it is great for the newly formed Ditcheat Thoroughbreds to have such a promising youngster. Bred by Joe Walsh down in Mullinavat, she is a half-sister to Classified and will hopefully continue to light up the racetrack in the coming months.

The high volume of racing over the festive period gave me plenty of days out. Many miles were covered to tracks such as Uttoxeter, Kempton, Fontwell, Exeter and Doncaster all in a week but it was made worthwhile to be on-hand to saddle Clic Work who brought up the seasons century.

Also over the past while, we have had a few Cheltenham Festival clues. Politologue made a big impression winning in Ascot with an incredible display of jumping as he galloped his rivals silly and put his marker down for the festival.

The aforementioned Capitaine did likewise on the same card, and on New Year’s Day at Cheltenham, Clan Des Obeaux put up a good performance in defeat to Whisper and wouldn’t be one to forget about come March.

This weekend is again Grade 1 action at Sandown with Capitaine running in the Tolworth Hurdle. Other highlights on the card are Aerial and London National winner Rocky Creek running in the valuable veterans’ series final.

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