Alex Hammond reflects on the jumps season before turning her attention to this weekend's Classics in her latest blog.
What did you make of Willie Mullins being crowed champion trainer for the second successive season?
It’s a remarkable achievement from Willie Mullins and even given the strength in depth he has in his Closutton stables, it still takes some doing to win a championship.
It’s heartbreaking for Dan Skelton and his team but that’s the nature of the beast and I enjoyed the competition in the later stages of the season between the pair. Both were incredibly sporting, and Dan’s time will come.
How impressed have you been with champion jockey Sean Bowen throughout the campaign?
He’s an incredibly worthy champion and a credit to himself and the sport. In the jumping game staying injury free is part of the battle and injury cruelly denied him his first title last season. However, in his laid back way, he’s fiercely competitive and ambitious and is already striving towards his next target, which is to ride 200 winners in a season.
I wish him the best and look forward to seeing how that plays out next term. There seems to be a genuine warmth and camaraderie between the jump jockeys, and it’s been refreshing to see the championship race fought out between a variety of different names since the domination of AP McCoy’s record breaking era.
Field Of Gold is favourite for the 2000 Guineas – what are your thoughts on the race?
We are still currently in an unseasonably dry period of weather which means there should be proper flat racing ground at Newmarket this weekend. That will be a different test for a few of the protagonists in the 2000 Guineas, including Field Of Gold who hasn’t run on a good to firm surface since his debut in June.
Having said that, it was inexperience rather than the surface that did for him at Doncaster on debut and there’s no reason he won’t be even more effective on this sort of ground. I’ve been a huge fan since that day, and he’s gone from strength to strength. He should improve plenty for his reappearance win in the Craven and is a worthy 7/4 favourite.
William Buick has picked Ruling Court from the Charlie Appleby pair which is clearly a vote of confidence. He was beaten favourite behind The Lion In Winter in the Acomb when boiling over beforehand, so you can draw a line through that and, at 4/1, is quite tempting after putting in some smart recent work since his return from Dubai.
What do you make of Desert Flower in the 1000 and what are her dangers?
She’s strong and may take all the beating. She’s 10/11 favourite with Sky Bet with Lake Victoria 7/2 second best.
Both fillies are having their first runs of the season and the fact they are both in the line up makes for a thrilling contest. It’s been well reported that Lake Victoria has been slow to come to hand but according to trainer Aidan O’Brien, when she starts to come to herself it can happen quickly.
I don’t think I’d be piling in with the favourite at the prices now that Lake Victoria is a likely runner, but it should be a sparkling contest with two talented fillies going head to head.
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