Harry Derham is eyeing a shot at Saturday's Lanzarote Hurdle this weekend after his team recently got the ball rolling again following a significant setback.
The young trainer, former assistant to his uncle Paul Nicholls at Ditcheat, suffered a major blow when a late-November storm and torrential rain left his gallop in Boxford completely unfit for purpose.
Having received financial help from his parents in order to fix the damage and resurface the area, Derham has emerged from a stressful time and is pleased to see his horses have been performing with credit on the track.
He's had a winner and three places since the turn of the New Year and sends two contenders for Saturday's Coral Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle, providing the weather doesn't get in his way once more.
Derham said: "We're just happy to be back racing and to have horses back running. And happy to have all the gallop drama behind us.
"It was enormously frustrating but was one of those things that - if happened - so we just had to react to it.
"It was a complete nightmare but it was one of those things where you couldn't just say 'oh well let's just see what happens'. It was done, it needed fixing so we just go on with fixing it.
"All the horses that we've got back started have been placed or run very well, which is good. And I'm excited to start talking about horses again and not just my gallop!
"There was so much nice racing at Christmas and I couldn't really take part in it. But it's done and I'm now in a position where I have lots of horses who are fresh for the last part of the season, so that's what I've got to focus on."
Derham won the Lanzarote as a jockey in 2014 on Saphir Du Rheu and is represented 10-year-old Dargiannini under Paul O'Brien and Harry Cobden-ridden seven-year-old Il Va De Soi in the valuable contest this weekend.
He said: "It'll be tiring ground, it's been wet and then it'll probably be dry for a couple of days. Dargiannini last time out was back to form having basically been disappointing this season, but I kept saying it was taking him a while to get fit this year.
"Doncaster (finished second to Homme Public) was much more like it. He's got top weight which will make life very tough but he's not getting any younger and we're going to let him take his chance.
"If it'd been good to soft ground then Dargiannini would have absolutely loved it as he likes it around Kempton. Soft ground might be a bit tough for him.
"Il Va De Soi is at the other end of the scale, he's still very young and unexposed, improving horse who ran in a very good race last time out - winners are still coming out of that race. I like him, I think the ground will be no problem and he stays well. He's a quirky horse but I think he's very capable of running a good race in a race like this.
"I do think it'll be a big field if it's on. If you've got a horse rated in the 120s and can run for £100,000 - then how good is that?!".
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