by Hayley
With two runners at Newcastle today and two members of staff needed to go racing, the lads in the yard did their Thursday jobs yesterday instead - cleaning out the walker, powerwashing stables, changing the water in the treadmill etc etc. Being two staff down may not be a huge amount in the larger yards, but to us it's a big enough percentage of the team.
Both Miss Bates and Cuppacoco have decent course form and so you would have to hope that both are in with a shout. Miss Bates runs in the 4.25pm and will look to emulate her run at the track at the end of October (same trip and class), when she was denied a win by just a nose. She ran well again on her next - and most recent - start down at Chelmsford where she ran on from the rear to be fourth. Cuppacoco's form has been hit and miss since her back-to-back wins at the Northumberland track at the end of 2017. Tonight she drops back to five furlongs, a distance she has previously won over, and we really hope this will do the trick. She remains 6lbs higher than her last win, despite a few losing efforts in between, so she will have a fairly heavy weight of 9st 6lbs to overcome. Fingers crossed both girls put their best hooves forward - we have had only the one runner so far this year and it would be fantastic to get the ball rolling nice and early for two very loyal and enthusiastic owners.