Pancho Isn’t For Passing 🥇

El Bandido Pancho in the hands of Rex Dingle secured a well deserved first victory at Newton Abbot in the 2 mile 5 f novices handicap hurdle.

All of last season we struggled to keep Pancho healthy which resulted in him gaining a low opening handicap mark. He fell when looking the winner on handicap debut at Lingfield and then never got in any sort of a rhythm on chasing debut. Reverting back to hurdles last time at Ffos Las he ran with great credit finishing 2nd learning plenty in the process. We were delighted to see testing conditions at Newton Abbot, this allowed us to take our chance and we felt we shouldn’t be far away. Rex popped him out in front and one by one got them under pressure before a sustained dual with the favourite from 2 out, but Pancho battled hard and got home by a neck.

Pancho has always shown plenty of ability at home so it’s no surprise things are beginning to click for him. He’s a horse who will continue to improve greatly for time and patience.

On Wednesday Game Colours finished an excellent 2nd /16 in a 2 mile handicap hurdle at Cheltenham. After a mistake at the first she never quite got into a fluent rhythm but still battled hard to only be denied by 1/2 length. This was a cracking effort by a progressive mare.

We have a few horses to run next week before the season draws to a close and we’ll be hoping to get off to a good start when the scoreboards reset to zero in May.