I’ve been much happier with Cast No Shadow in the last couple of weeks, and he really seems to be coming back to himself which is good to see.

He obviously suffered with sore shins after his run at Ripon, and it just took him a bit of time to get over that, and I wasn’t 100% happy with how he was moving in the weeks following that run. He did plenty in the swimming pool which is a real benefit of having that facility as it means you can keep them pretty fit even when they aren’t doing proper work on the gallops.

He’s moving really well now and looks very well in himself, and he did two canters for the first time on Friday, so we are definitely progressing with him, and I’m hopeful we can see him back on the racecourse in the next few weeks. Very provisionally we’ve picked out a couple of races that we might target with him next time, both over 5f. One is at Windsor on 23rd October, and the other at Southwell on 26th October, so we’ll monitor him over the next week or so and decide where we want to go with him.

He seemed to struggle with the undulations of Ripon last time, so the reason for picking those races at Windsor and Southwell is they are both flat tracks and he should hopefully appreciate that much more, but they are only races we have an eye on at the moment, so plans could change depending on where we are with him over the next week or so.

I’ll keep everybody updated on his progress, but we are certainly getting closer to seeing him back on the track, and I’m really looking forward to running him again.

Hugo Palmer, Coral Racing Club Trainer