Breizh River – Perth

BRIEZH RIVER (3.43) heads to Perth on Sunday trying a new trip of just under three miles for the first time.

I have felt for a while he wants to be running over this kind of distance because although he’s run well over 2m, he’s always had the choke out a bit and was getting away with it.

Sean Quinlan also told us when he got off him at Kelso after winning the Ray and Anita Green race last October that he believed we should be going further with him.

We took him to Cheltenham after that in really good company thinking he’d need to get 2m4f to handle the two miles there in a graded race and while he ultimately wasn’t up to that standard, he jumped superbly and ran through the line.

We had a go twice at Musselburgh over two-and-a-half miles in January and February but after those disappointing efforts we discovered he’d been suffering from quite bad gastric ulcers.

He wasn’t showing any signs of it outwardly day-to-day, but once we had him scoped we realised it must have been really bothering him.

Those have been treated now and having ridden him a fair bit myself lately I am confident he’s back to his old self again.

Last month we wanted to get a run into him so took him to Perth over a trip too short but it got him back on the track after four months off and it was far more like it.

We’ve also given him a wind operation since his last run in the hope that will bring about a bit more improvement.

Everything is good to go so we’re looking forward to stepping him up in trip now and seeing what the extra distance can unlock.

Ryan Mania is currently away on holiday so Craig Nichol will be taking the ride, he knows him well having ridden him when he won at Hexham last year so was the obvious person for us to get.