DESPITE not having a winner in the last few days I am delighted to have reached 50 winners for the season!

How you may ask, well…. Chemical Warfare now has an incredible eight wins to his name for the season. We thought his win at Sedgefield the other day was his seventh, our 49th, but rather by accident we have discovered that he has been awarded a race that he actually finished runner-up in because the winner has been disqualified!

It is quite fitting that he should be our 50th winner as he has been a flag bearer for the yard at his level for a twelve month period which is a testament to both him and to us for keeping him in such good form for the whole year.

I find it disappointing that no officials have been in contact with either me or his owners about the situation. Only when looking at the trainer’s table on Saturday did we discover we were on 50 winners so it can have only been in the last few days.

Only when trying to work out if it was a printing error or where the extra winner had come from did we notice Chemical Warfare had eight wins to his name and so looking at his form further you can see that originally he finished second at Uttoxeter on 26th July last year but the winner has now been disqualified, having tested positive for a banned substance.

Anyway, it is great to have reached the 50-winner milestone for the season, having narrowly missed out last time so thanks must go to all the owners for supporting me and to my staff for helping to make this happen. I believe Chemical Warfare has the most wins to his name for a jumps horse this season in the country and it really is a wonderful achievement.

Ocean Heights ran with credit again on the all-weather at Kempton to a very close fifth. Shot Boii ran well to be fourth at Ffos Las on Wednesday evening. Fergus Gillard gave him a positive ride and although he lost his position turning out of the back straight the final time he rallied all the way up the straight and only just missed out on snatching third place.

River Run Free was disappointing but Eton Mes made a pleasing enough stable debut in the bumper at Ffos Las. He is a lovely big four year old and one very much to look forward to novice hurdling in the autumn.

We have now had some rain but it has been localised and not everywhere has had it. We also need a lot of rain to really have an effect on the ground after such a long dry spell so we are still being selective over our runners. Keep checking the Daily News on the website for the latest news on the stable runners. Sirekoff is likely to be our final runner of the season at Bangor on Thursday.

We are in the final week of the 2024-25 National Hunt season with the finale at Sandown on Saturday. Their going is currently described as good, good to firm in places, so they will be hoping to catch some more rain before the weekend.

Dave Pipe column as told to Richard Walsh