National Hunt jockey Gavin Sheehan has had an exceptional season, riding 81 winners already. The King George winner gives his thoughts ahead of Day One at the Cheltenham Festival.
It was great to get the week started with a treble at Stratford on Monday, Rodger for Richard Hobson has an interesting story having come from Slovakia and should be some fun when he heads chasing. It was also lovely to get two more for Jamie Snowden with Milldam and Hollygrove Cha Cha. Milldam was winner number 400 for Jamie and his team at Folly House, a big well done to all involved in reaching that milestone. Speaking of milestones yesterdays treble saw me hit my most ever winners in a season. Given how long is left I am delighted with how things are going and must say a big thank you to all the various connections who have helped me hit that number this season. Here’s to a few more, ideally this week!
Onto Cheltenham and day one of the festival, it’s obviously a massive week and having been lucky enough to come away with a winner last year you always want more. I have a couple of rides on the card on day one and my first comes in the Ultima where I ride Lord Du Mesnil for Richard Hobson. He has been a grand horse over the years and his best this season came at Cheltenham in December when running over two miles four in a Veterans handicap chase. He lost a shoe that day and stayed on well over a trip that was probably shorter than ideal now for him, the rain due in the morning will only aid his chances of a big run.
My other ride on the day comes on last years Mares Novice winner Youwearitwell, last season it felt everything very much went to plan for her in the lead up to her Festival win, this year apart from her seasonal return where she beat Luccia it has been harder with plenty of her targets having to move due to meetings being abandoned. Her effort in the rearranged Fighting Fifth looks better on reflection now than it did at the time and then to run Marie’s Rock close at Doncaster over three miles was a big effort. Her run last time out at Haydock we just must put a line through and hope she returns to her best today. It looks a very strong renewal where we all have Lossiemouth to beat but there are plenty of other decent Mares in the line up too.
