HARRY WHITTINGTON BLOG: Grade 1-winning trainer and ambassador for market-leading betting exchange BETDAQ, looks back on the previous seven days and previews his upcoming runners.

The ground went against SPEEDY CARGO at Fontwell. He didn’t like the soft going and he lost his action a bit around the final circuit, but stayed on pretty well.

We’re looking forward to stepping him up in trip over hurdles and he should make a nice three miler as the season progresses.

Similarly, THE DUBAI WAY just didn’t cope with the good ground at Southwell where he got quite outpaced.

It’s taught us that he’s much happier when there is a bit of juice in the ground and even though he wasn’t anywhere near the winner, he’ll have learnt plenty and will come on for the run.

Entries this week

ROUGE VIF will run at Newton Abbot on Friday (1.40pm).

He won on soft ground at Ludlow on debut last season, so the forecast rain is a bonus.

His work has been impressive at home and I’d like to think he goes there with a very good chance.

On the same card, JOHNNY ROCCO will run in the closing bumper (5.10pm).

He’s improved significantly for having a break and has come on both physically and mentally.

I’m expecting an improved run from his debut at Fontwell and whatever he does here should stand him in good stead for when he goes over a hurdle.

I think SIMPLY THE BETTS will run at Hexham on Saturday (2.50pm). It looks a nice place to get his season underway, especially with the ground looking like it will be on the softer side.

He’s going to run under a penalty, but we want to give him a nice confidence booster before we head into handicaps later in the season.

We think he’s entitled to be competitive of his mark of 130 and we’re hoping this novice contest will act as a good starting point before we step him up to handicap company.

Colour changes to fences and hurdles

It’s hard to have an opinion on this proposal until the jockeys have given their feedback, but horses like familiarity and consistency.

We have so many types of hurdles at the moment and I think it would be beneficial if all tracks used the same ones, just so we have consistency across the board.

At the end of the day though, both equine and jockey welfare are paramount and if this new idea improve that, then I’m all for it.

HARRY