Wednesday 18 May 2011

Mick Channon Blog: Arnold Lane Motors Home To Win On Debut At Leicester

Seriously, these headlines are getting painful - A Lane cannot "motor", but it's the best I could come up with.

Anyhow, things are going great for the yard at the moment as yet another classy looking juvenile made his racecourse bow and could well be on the road to Royal Ascot.
Arnold Lane, owned by Nick & Olga Dhandsa and John & Zoe Webster, cruised to victory in the five furlong British Stallions Studs EBF Ladbrokes.com maiden in a manner that had class stamped all over it.

A little slowly away, Arnold Lane began to overhaul his rivals at halfway, taking Sam Hitchcott to the front far earlier than he would have liked. Green when he hit the front, he saw off his nearest rival Red Aggressor by a length and three quarters with the next best fully two lengths in arrears.

Another exciting youngster and a pleasing win for MRC although he now might have to start juggling his options with the big meetings on the horizon.

"That was impressive, he's always promised to be a nice type although it looked a tough little race on paper with several fancied runners, but we've had some nice types throwing in the odd stinker on debut. He'll get six, although I'm not against sticking to five at the moment. He has a lot of class.

"I suppose we'll look for a conditions race and then there's Ascot or even the Irish Guineas meeting where we could pick up black type. It's a great position to be in and I'm going to have to make the right choices with our latest batch of winners.

"The owners are great people so I'll have to speak to them about the plans. Nick and Olga are new to the game, but John and Zoe have been with us for a couple of years now. Their first horse was Archers Road and what a first season he gave them! John is President of the Ex Saints Association and a proper bloke, so it's great to think that we might have another good horse for him.

"Archers Road was a two year old sprinter, end of story, but Arnold Lane has the scope and a touch of class that can see him progress into a nice prospect."

HCE: ''This looks quite a classy juvenile and the form of the Leicester race is likely to hold up.''

Other two-year-old news from Channon:

Triggrlo showed great promise in his opening performances, he kept bumping in to one or two too good. A Thirsk maiden looked there for the taking but something was amiss and it was later discovered that Triggerlo suffered from a bout of coughing that explained his substandard display. MRC in the meantime called the vet to give the son of Piccolo something else to think about.