It was so frustrating that Cast No Shadow wasn’t one of the captain’s picks for this week’s Racing League fixture at Newcastle, and we felt due to his excellent record at the track that we might get picked, but sadly it was not to be.

I think we’ve been there four times now and had two wins, a second and a fourth, so we felt we’d have gone really close in that 5f race on Thursday, but we’ll have to look at other options for him now.

It’s tough to take because that race had been the plan for a few months, so it’s back to the drawing board a little bit with him, and we know there are a real shortage of suitable races on the all-weather at this time of year. There is another race over five furlongs at Southwell next week in the Racing League, so we’ll give him an entry as there’s very valuable prize money on offer once again, but I suspect if we couldn’t get a run at Newcastle, then we’ll probably struggle at Southwell too.

We’ll see how things pan out, but the horse is in such great order at home, and he’s been working really well of late, so I’m looking forward to finding the right race for him in the near future. If we have to wait for the winter when there are more options on the all-weather then so be it, but I don’t think it’s worth wasting a run with him on the grass as he’s shown on more than one occasion that he just isn’t able to show his best on it for whatever reason.

Hugo Palmer, Coral Racing Club Trainer