All systems go at Taunton as we start our season on Thursday, November 14. The day is starting to take shape with the first of six races scheduled for 12.30pm and the last at 3.25pm. Entries will be in on Friday with the runners confirmed the following Tuesday. It will surely be a competitive card with over £64,000 of prize money being offered and well worth a visit.

Early bird discounted tickets are available on the website www.taunton-racecourse.co.uk or you can turn up on the day and pay at the gate.

For those of you looking to use the courtesy coach service, it will depart from outside platform 5 of Taunton Railway Station 90 minutes before the first race time and return half an hour after the start of the last. 

Over the next six months the track will surely see some nice young horses ply their trade and go on to compete at the highest level. The skill is highlighting the talent early and for those of you who witnessed Golden Ace (pictured) win at the track in January and February last season will have found the ‘pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’ as she went on the win at the Cheltenham Festival and followed up again at National Hunt HQ in April. Watch this space as they say.

The National Hunt season is now in full cry and we enjoyed some excellent racing at Ascot and Wetherby last weekend and an old ally of the column in Chianti Classico opened up his season at Ascot with another win. He is now 4 wins from 6 runs over fences, is a thoroughly likeable individual and looks as though he could be heading for the Coral Cup at Newbury before eventually the Grand National. His master trainer Kim Bailey will surely plot his path with great precision and although a long way away the 33/1 antepost on offer looks tempting.

Our West Country trainers are in fine form and a couple for your notebook so far are the Paul Nicholls trained Quebecois, he bolted up at Chepstow recently and David Pipe introduced Walkadina to hurdles for the first time at Uttoxeter where she made all under Tom Bellamy to win by 13 lengths, she is imposing mare who will surely excel over the larger obstacles later in her career. Also, at the time of writing the Tizzard team have just rattled off 3 winners and 3 second places from just 7 runners in November and the Hobbs/White team are 2 winners from their last 4 runners, so it is all looking very positive for the region.