Southwell triple for Appleby

Over the last two or three seasons, the stable of Michael Appleby, who trains at Danethorpe near Newark, has gone from strength to strength.

He took the 2012 November Handicap with Art Scholar and won the Silver Cambridgeshire last year with one of his stable stars Bancnuanaheireann, or ‘New bank of Ireland’ in Gaelic.

His strike rate at his local course, though, is fantastic, and across Southwell’s cards last Tuesday and Wednesday, he had three more winners; Jacobs Son, Adili and Scarborough, ridden by three different riders.

Jacobs Son was ridden to victory by the jockey best known for his association with the brilliant Frankel, Tom Queally, who is freelance this season and having a really good winter riding for the likes of Mick and Alan McCabe.

Adili was ridden to success by stable jockey Andrew Mullen, but it was the very impressive victory of Scarborough that raised plenty of eyebrows on Wednesday.

It wasn’t just the manner of this demolition job, but it was yet another example of why Ali Rawlinson is making such a name for himself in the saddle.

The young apprentice was riding his 10th winner of the year from just his 41st ride and is definitely a rider to follow on the Turf this summer.

Also on Tuesday, Kingscombe recorded his fourth win in a row at Southwell when winning the one mile six furlong handicap under Robert Havlin.

It was his sixth career win, all of which have been on the Fibresand. Alumina (pictured) also is a filly in top form, recording her sixth consecutive win under Jack Garrity, and a fourth at Southwell.

The feature race on Wednesday went the way of Broughtons Charm under Robert Winston, who battled on doggedly to fend off another course specialist, Hannah’s Turn.

Of course it was the Grand National last weekend, and Pineau De Re was victorious for Dr Richard Newland and jockey Leighton Aspell.

The winner of the closing Grade Two bumper, however, was Ballybolley for Sam and Nigel Twiston-Davies, a horse who made a winning debut at Southwell in December before winning at Towcester a couple of weeks ago, and now Aintree.

The first of Southwell’s Music Evenings is on Wednesday, 16th April with Urban Intro performing live after racing, before which they have their final two All-Weather Championship meeting.