Alcarath aims to strike first time for the Highclere team up at Redcar tomorrow

November 3

It’s been an amazing seven days for Barbury, with the week-end victories of Galaxy Star at Stratford and Vivid Pink at Huntingdon giving us five winners from our last eight runners.

And the three that did not win during that period all ran with credit. On only his second run Heroics showed that soft ground holds no terrors when runner-up in a mile novice at Bath, Paddy Power Gold Cup entry Grandeur d’Ame produced a super first run of the season at Stratford, jumping boldly out in front until tipping up at the last fence when starting to tire, while on the same course Blue Sky Dreaming made a pleasing debut over hurdles, only losing third place in the last stride.

Here’s hoping our winning run might continue tomorrow, with Alcarath looking to have a solid chance in his first handicap at Redcar, where he will be running in new colours, having been bought by the Highclere Thoroughbred Racing team.

Having originally gone under the hammer for £280,000 at Goffs two years ago, Alcarath has always looked one for the future and was gelded soon after he joined the Barbury team.

Given plenty of time, Alcarath, despite showing obvious signs of inexperience, gave us plenty of reasons to be optimistic on his first two runs in August, at Kempton and Salisbury.

He has always worked like a good horse at home, so it was not a total surprise when he then turned over a 1-4 shot from the Gosden academy at Epsom in August.

Alcarath had learned plenty from those first two runs, so Rossa Ryan, well aware that the favourite was shouldering a 7lb penalty, rode a positive race from the front, and they readily brushed off the challenge of Gamrai before the furlong-pole for a comfortable success. He now has to take on older horses, but, though Rossa says he is still a big baby, he likes him a lot, so fingers crossed Alcarath can take another step up the ladder.

Warwick has always been one of Alan’s favourite courses, and we have three runners there tomorrow. First up is Lightfingered Jack, who was gelded last spring but is an interesting Getaway six-year-old out of that smart racemare Polly Peachum. He finally makes his debut in the Waley-Cohen colours in the seven-runner novice hurdle.

An hour later Uhtred Ragnarson, who had shown promise in a couple of bumpers, has his fourth run over jumps for Alan’s racing club in the two-mile handicap hurdle. There were plenty of encouraging positives from his efforts at Taunton and Chepstow, but the fact that he raced too freely over this course in May probably contributed to him making a series of jumping errors. So while he’ll doubtless need this race after six months off, hopefully he’ll be more competitive this time.

Baskerville, who was a consistent hurdler last season, is our third Warwick runner in the finale. He kick-started his chasing career on a winning note at Stratford in May, where his jumping got better as the race progressed.

Off an 8lb higher mark, Baskerville then finished a respectable third at Bangor, but his two subsequent runs have been disappointing, so, like with Uhtred Ragnarson, we’ll be looking to see him back on song.