Burk Alzain Kicks Of Our American Campaign

We are glad to say that all preparations in America are going very well. We have made our first entries and will be having our first runners this weekend at Arlington Park. Burj Alzain has taken to the American way very well and we are very happy with his work. He will be the first of our runners and is running tomorrow in an “Allowance” race with a purse of $32,000. We will take him and Joe Le Taxi to the stalls later on today to sharpen them up. Joe Le Taxi has settled very well. He is a very laid back character and has been happy to do whatever is asked of him. He will also be running this weekend on Saturday along with stable companion Maristar also in an “Allowance” race worth $34,500. Being American bred, we would like to think that Maristar will excel herself over here in America. She is a horse with huge potential and everything about Western racing is going to play to her strengths. I am sure her race on Saturday is going to be a stepping stone to bigger things. She has been very fresh as always and we are very excited to see how she fairs on Saturday. Akhmatova will line up in the Hanshin Cup on Saturday worth a staggering $100,000. I am very pleased with how she has adapted to her new surroundings as she has been known to be a very head strong young lady at times! She will go with Pachattack to do some stalls work tomorrow. Pachattack has been her usual professional self and has been tutoring her fellow stable mates on the American way of life. She breezed very well this morning over 7 furlongs under top USA jockey Junior Alvarado.

Back in the UK Swiss Cross got his head back in front to land a 0-90 handicap at Brighton on Tuesday. We were absolutely delighted at this as we think a lot of the horse and know he has more talent than what he has previously shown on the track. It was great that his owner Alan Spence was there to welcome him back into the winner’s enclosure. Hopefully now his confidence has had a well earned boost, he can go on to bigger and better things!

We were very disappointed with Rainy Champion’s run at Lingfield yesterday. Darryll Holland thought that maybe he did not handle the track too well, but we will certainly be doing some investigative work into his run to try and establish where the problem stemmed from. He has come home from the race in one piece which is the main thing and sometimes like the rest of us, horses can have their off days. Let’s hope this is what it was as we know he has a few races in him. 

Little Black Book is the favourite to take the 1m2f handicap at Sandown this evening. He has come on in leaps and bounds from his run at Windsor and is still open to more improvement. His regular jockey Darryll Holland will be getting the leg up this evening. It’s always an added bonus when a jockey knows a horse. We are hoping for a good run from him. 

Rounding up the week’s runners will be our second juvenile runner of the year Zain Princess who will be heading to Newbury on Saturday. She has always been a very forward and professional young lady and has been developing very nicely over the last 6 weeks. We are hoping that she can have a good experience in her first race and Newbury is a great track to introduce horses to racing.  There are plenty of runners and she has been drawn in the middle of them all so it will be a good learning experience for her and whatever she does on Saturday, you can be sure that she will be doing it ten times better next time.