Hugo Palmer: His work at home has been very good
Published:![Hugo Palmer, Coral blog, horse racing](https://sports.coral.co.uk/news/cdn/img/3f7f937a-3ba9-40a8-bad7-bb8fc9759b0e.jpeg?w=1920&fm=webp&q=75)
Trainer and Coral ambassador Hugo Palmer discusses the chances of his Wednesday runners at Royal Ascot and Hamilton.
Hackman runs in the Windsor Castle and I’m really happy with his draw in stall 17, as he’s almost smack bang in the middle of them. It’s hard to know at this stage how many groups they’ll split into or where exactly they’ll go, but at least in our position we can be flexible, rather than being drawn out on one of the wings.
Hackman and @themichaelowen after his win at Chester 💙 pic.twitter.com/WEStp65eS9
— Racing Post (@RacingPost) May 11, 2023
In hindsight, I think he might have ran a bit flat at Sandown last time. I was happy with him going into the race, but I’m much happier with him now, and his work at home has been very good. He did run well last time, but he was obviously no match for the winner, and James Doyle felt that he got softened up by another horse that day who eventually finished behind us.
I’m sure that experience won’t be lost on him, as he’s still a very young horse. He has plenty of speed, and this is a stiff 5f at Ascot, but fingers crossed he can put up a bold showing.
Paul Hanagan rides The Bitter Moose over at Hamilton for us on his racecourse debut, and I’m looking forward to finally getting him on the track.
We were meant to go to the Brocklesby with him right at the start of the season, but he sprained a joint right on declaration morning, so we just had to give him a bit of time to get over that.
He’s a really nice horse, and because of that setback I don’t want to run him on proper quick ground, so hopefully they get a bit of rain and there’s a bit of ease in the ground up at Hamilton. He wouldn’t want it too soft, but it looks good safe ground for him at the moment, so I’m looking forward to seeing how he gets on.
Hugo