The Champion Hurdle Trial at Haydock Park scheduled on Saturday is where Barry Geraghty expects to find his next win from Punjabi. The Nicky Henderson trained Punjabi of course won the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival last March but was beaten at the Rabobank Champion Hurdle at Punchestown in May by Solwhit.

Meanwhile, I have heard that Alan King is thinking of racing Medermit at the Haydock race. He is expected to make his final decision based on the condition of the ground at the venue, and after monitoring the weather on that day. Given what we’ve seen the past three weeks, its anyone’s guess what the weather will do!

In addition to this, I heard that the British Horseracing Authority has decided to hold another meeting at Newcastle on Monday. This move was made to bolster their racing schedule which had changed with the loss of 35 meetings due to the cold snap. The additional schedules so far are for January 29th and 31st, and February 5th and 12th.

Another piece of interesting news on the grapevine is that the 100-1 winner of last year’s Aintree, Mon Mome may be run in the Totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup before the John Smith’s Grand National crown on April 10th. Mon Mome was actually scheduled to run in the Welsh National, but as the ground was frosted, Venetia Williams pulled him out at the last minute.

Will he be able to cope with two such high profile rides in fairly quick succession?