I'm targeting his first race for December 5th.

Conservative has had a good week on the gallops. His fitness is improving all the time, which is exactly what we wanted to see, and it has now given me confidence that we can start looking at where he runs for the first time for us.

I had a look at the programme book this morning and I am going to target his first run to be on the 5th December, in a 7 furlong handicap contest at Wolverhampton. He has an official British Horseracing Authority rating of 81, which is based upon his previous level of achievement and racecourse performances, and the ratings band for this race is 0 – 85, so he will get into the race no problem.

He has done well at Wolverhampton before, finishing second there for his previous trainer back in April, and it is the right sort of grade for him, so there is no reason why he can’t be competitive in that race if he does feature. Now we have a target, I will start to gradually increase his work over the new few weeks. Obviously, we want him to be peaking for that race at Wolverhampton. I don’t want to him run any sooner than that as I think he needs a little more time to be ready.

At this stage, I am leaning towards seven furlongs being the best distance for the horse, but I am not ruling out one mile (eight furlongs) as an option. Sometimes you have to run them in a competitive race to learn more about them and that might prove to be the case with Conservative.

Scott Dixon