Cold Stare wins at Haydock

Sun 09 Jun 2019

It was a busy day yesterday, with stable visits with owners to see our horses with MARK JOHNSTON and ANN DUFFIELD, then on to the races, where the weather had forgotten it was June!

The Heavy going at Haydock was no hindrance to Cold Stare though, as he and Harry Bentley won the competitive 6f handicap in good style! Held up in the 15 runner field, the pair made headway 2 furlongs out to "forge clear" (as the Racing Post commented), by over 2 lengths - his second win at the track too. Timeform have given him a rating of 109, which is very good to see. Well done to his owners and thank you to Harry and David O'Meara, who is having a great season.

Cold Stare's syndicate manager Mike Prince said after the race "The ground is so key for him. It was a funny race he ran in at Chester last time out (almost pulled up) - they sort of all came in on top of him. I thought six furlongs might be his trip, but it's all about the ground. I assume he'll end up at Ayr in whatever Cup he gets into. We'll keep him ticking over, but it depends on how long the soft ground lasts as to if he'll be out again soon."

The Mark Johnston trained Ventura Knight ran a cracker in the Class 2 handicap at Newmarket to take 2nd under Silvestre De Sousa; 12 days after his thrilling 3rd in the Zetland Gold Cup. Ventura Gold continued his winners' enclosure performances this year (1st, 1st, 3rd, 3rd) with a 3rd place at Beverley under Jack Garritty for Richard Fahey.

With 29 winners on the board for the year now, who will be our 30th? Tomorrow and Tuesday sees some nice 2 year old's make their debuts, along with two having their second starts after good first runs, where they placed 2nd and 3rd. An interesting few days coming up! http://www.middlehamparkracing.net/entries.htm