5 Interviews completed and 5 more to go

Apologies for not updating the Diary for a few days but I have been busy in Newmarket interviewing for the forthcoming edition of Ahead On The Flat. Indeed, it has been a productive week with visits to William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, David Simcock and Roger Varian's stables. All four gave up a lot of their time to run through their strings for the season ahead. Whilst there I was also fortunate to be invited to Amy Murphy's yard on the Hamilton Road and saw last weekend's Betfair Hurdle winner Kalashnikov. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip to the HQ of Flat racing. Before I headed down the A1, I also interviewed Roger Charlton for AOTF. The plan is to sort out more interviews next week.

Whiskey In The Jar, featured in the Top 40 Prospects, recorded his second win over hurdles with another bloodless success at Fakenham this afternoon. A wide margin winner at Uttoxeter last time, Olly Murphy's ex-Irish gelding repeated the dose at the Norfolk track with a nine lengths win under Fergus Gregory. His trainer indicated afterwards that the son of Oscar will head to Sandown next month for the EBF Final. However, his future lies over fences next term.

I am working at Haydock tomorrow for Racing UK. Fingers crossed, the ante-post selection in the February Update can oblige in the Grand National Trial. The testing conditions shouldn't be an issue and I wouldn't swop him for anything else in the field.