Andre Klein is General Manager at Warwick Racecourse. In his latest column with the Observer, he looks back at The Festival at Cheltenham and ahead to the May Carnival at Warwick.
With The Festival, presented by Magners, over, the focus for our team now turns well and truly to the Qatar Airways May Racing Carnival at Warwick.
After a blustery four days at Prestbury Park, where we were all well and truly rugged up, the thought of racing with a few rays of warm sunshine on our backs is highly anticipated.
Fingers crossed the sun will be shining come May!
It was a good Festival, with winners relatively easy to find.
Attendance at Warwick’s Cheltenham Preview evenings helped with many snippets of worthwhile information.
Locally there were two wins for Dan Skelton, both of which emphasised his ability to get horses ready for the big moment, very much in the style of his mentor for many years, Paul Nicholls.
Roksana landed the Mares Novice Hurdle and Ch’Tibello, the highly experienced top class hurdler, made light work of his opposition in the County Hurdle.
Wilmcote’s trainer Olly Murphy advertised his skills well too, with all three runners performing admirably well.
Thomas Darby and Itchy Feet occupied the second and third spot in the Sky Bet Supreme Novice, whilst Brewin’upastorm put up a grand performance over a slightly longer trip to finish fourth in the Ballymore Novice Hurdle.
The highlight for me though was Hazel Hill’s win. I would like to think that everyone who saw him star at Warwick at the end of January would have had their money on him.
There has been no more impressive win at our track this season and he took that fine performance in to The Festival.
The Qatar Airways May Carnival is back and will provide another platform for horses to shine at Warwick.
We’ll be announcing more details about the Carnival soon, but it will get underway with the Kids Carnival fixture on Monday, May 6 – which is always a great day out for the family.
Then we’ll move on to Ladies Night on May 11, with the return of Fashions-on-the-Field.
We’ll have two more fixtures on May 22 and May 29 too – when our season comes to a close.
May is our busiest month at Warwick and one I always look forward to. If you enjoyed The Festival at Cheltenham, join us at Warwick in May.
