It was brilliant to reach a century of winners for the season for the 23rd time with the success of Kruger Park at Newbury on Friday.

It’s always nice to reach that landmark figure before the Cheltenham Festival and I’m sure we would have done it a fair bit sooner but for so many race meetings being cancelled because of the relentlessly wet winter. Our horses remain in good form with a strike rate of 25% and they have already earned £2.2 million for their owners. Things are going well just at the right time for Team Ditcheat with the added bonus that Harry Cobden now holds a useful lead in the jockeys’ championship.
On Saturday the mud loving Makin’yourmindup took our score to 101 with a fluent victory at Newbury. He shapes like he will gallop all day and could be an interesting one for the Coral Welsh National at Chepstow next Christmas.
Kandoo Kid also ran very well in finishing a close second to Heltenham in the Greatwood Gold Cup. He is progressing nicely, will be even better on drier ground and we will try to find another nice race for him in the spring. Incidentally Heltenham paid a decent compliment to Golden Son who gave him 5lbs and a beating at Kempton last time.
The latest weather forecast hinted at less rain this week ahead of Sandown’s big meeting on Saturday where Fire Flyer and Emailandy are on course for the EBF Final and then it’s on to Cheltenham.
For all the latest news on my Saturday runners please check out my Betfair column which goes live the previous morning.