Dan Skelton previews his runners at Sandown and Huntingdon

This will be a bit of a quiet weekend by our standards with only one runner on Saturday at Sandown.

Mind you he’s a good runner. Allmankind (13.50) tackles the G1 Henry VIII Novices’ Chase. I have been very happy with him. He jumped beautifully at Warwick and has delighted me since. The ground should be no issue.

Obviously it is a massive step up in class but he won a Grade One last year and I feel like he is as good as I can have him. There should be no excuses. It will be a good race.

Sunday – Huntingdon

We have another good novice chaser out on Sunday in Shan Blue (13.50). Hopefully this will be his last run before the Kauto Star Novices Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.

The three mile trip should be good for him. He looked great at Wetherby twice. Huntingdon is quite similar to Kempton so I thought it would be a nice place to go beforehand.

Although he has to give away a double penalty, he is a good horse. I’ve been very happy with his progress over fences this season.

We also run Crooks Peak (15.05). It will be his first run for us. I don’t know all that much about him other than his public form. We did his wind when we got him. This run will give us an idea of where we are heading. I don’t have any great expectations, I just want to see where we are.

We run a nice mare called Global Famenglory (15.35) in the Listed Mares’ Bumper. The form of her debut run at Uttoxeter is working out really well with the winner coming out and dead-heating with one of ours at Cheltenham in a Listed race. So the form is pretty strong, and there were winners behind her as well.

I thought we had better get her out again and see where she stands in this grade. She will be spending the season in bumpers anyway so I didn’t think we had anything to lose by pitching at this grade.

Dan