We were obviously quite disappointed with Cast No Shadow’s debut at Ripon on Saturday, but as Paul [Hanagan] said after the race, everything that could have gone wrong for him did.

We were very unfortunate with the draw, as the last thing you want for a debutant is to be drawn on the wing with nothing on your outside, and he just veered right as he came out the stalls. He got a few bumps along the way too, so that coupled with the ground being softer than ideal meant we didn’t see the best of him.

He took all the preliminaries in his stride, and the guys that travelled with him in the horsebox said he was good as gold. We know he has a lovely temperament, and hopefully he’ll have learnt plenty now he has that first run under his belt.

We had circled a race at Wolverhampton on the 4th August for him, but he’s just a come out of the race with slightly sore shins, so we might give him another week or so. It’s nothing serious, but we’ve just given him an easy couple of days following his run at Ripon, and we’ve had him swimming rather than galloping just to give him time to get over it.

We’ll keep everybody updated with the plans, but all being well, we should see him back on the track again over the next few weeks.

Hugo Palmer, Coral Racing Club Trainer