New year plans for Katalyst, Diamond Days and Cave Article | Stable Round-Up
08 Jan 2026
As we look ahead to the second half of the 25/26 jumps season and continue to prepare our team for the return of the flat, we caught up with a few of our Coral Racing Club trainers to find out what the plan is over the next few months with Katalyst, Diamond Days and Cave Article.
Katalyst
Our now three-year-old filly had an interesting and active first season on the racecourse after joining the Coral Racing Club in the middle of 2025. Despite racking up five runs in her career to date, it hasn't all been plain sailing with Katalyst, which was especially evident in what was supposed to be her debut run for the club at Newbury in June, where she refused to enter the stalls after getting worked up before the race. Following that incident, she was required to undergo further stalls testing, to make sure she would go into the gates the next time she was on course. Thankfully, she passed her stalls test with flying colours and hasn't shown sides of getting agitated in the pre-race formalities since.
Her debut eventually came in August at Chepstow where she was slowly away from the stalls and showed signs of greenness throughout. Her next run was arguably the most promising of her career so far, where she finished fifth at Kempton behind representatives from the powerful operations of Godolphin, Wathnan, Cheveley Park and Qatar. She took an early lead before taking the sweeping bend at Kempton in touch with the powerhouses that were always likely to be contending at the finish. At the cutaway it looked as though she might pick up, but ultimately the turn of foot from those in front got the better of her and she came home a clear fifth, with a good distance both in front and behind her.
In the final three runs of her campaign she continued to show some signs of promise as she stepped up from six furlongs to seven, with her final start coming over the mile trip. Trainer Chris Grassick was hopeful of getting one final run into her before the turn of the year, but unfortunately no suitable targets cme around.
The future looks bright for Katalyst, with a reasonable mark of 65 to work with going forward, as well as more runs planned over the mile trip, and potentially further. We caught up with Chris over the festive period and this is what he had to say about Katalyst's future.
WATCH: Chris Grassick looks ahead to 2026 with Katalyst
Diamond Days
Diamond Days has had a steady start to the 2025/26 jumps season since coming back from an extended summer break in November with just three runs. He kicked his campaign off with his sixth start over hurdles at Fontwell where he came home in third place over an extended 2m1f trip. Following that promising performance, trainer Joe Tizzard confirmed that he would be campaigned over fences for the rest of the season, as he had been schooling over the larger flights at home, and was excelling in all of his work at Venn Farm.
Less than two weeks later, Diamond Days took on his first chase over 2m4f at Lingfield, a course where we've seen him perform admirably in the past. He looked good for the majority of the contest, taking many of the fences fluently and maintaining a strong position within the field of five. A slight mistake at the tenth fence dropped him back in the pack and it looked as though his effort might peter out at that point, but he battled back gallantly under the ride of Freddie Gingell, who galvanised him at the end of the race to storm home in a very tight photo for second place.
Although he came out on the wrong side of that photo, the fourth place finish on the day doesn't tell the whole story, as he was looking finished in the race before picking up the bit once more and rallying home to finish only two lengths down on the winner.
Diamond Days at home with Joe Tizzard and Brendan Powell
Diamond Days would only have one more run in 2025 following that performance when stepping up in trip to 2m5½f. Unfortunately the conditions were testing to say the least that day, with the bottomless ground really making a dent in Diamond Days' chances of putting in a good performance. After plenty of market support throughout the day, he was backed into the 7/4 favourite, however he came home a well beaten fifth.
Joe decided to put him away for the festive period after that effort and also gave him his flu jab. With the recent cold spell it's not been easy for many trainers and their yards, however, when we spoke with him a couple of days ago he gave us a positive update on the situation at Venn Farm.
"With the team working hard, we’ve managed to keep our woodchip gallop going through this cold spell. We got down to minus six degrees here one night, but even that didn’t stop us, so all the horses have cantered every day, meaning we’ve not lost any fitness edge, and as long as the weather improves, and we don’t get any great snowfall, we should be all systems go again next week.
Diamond Days has got over the little setback that caused his disappointing Fontwell run. We treated him for a week, and since then he’s been going nicely at home. It really was just a case of him picking up a bug, like we as humans get colds at this time of year. We took the opportunity to give him his flu jab as well, so now that’s out of the way, we can crack on with him.
I’m looking at the meeting at Lingfield on Monday 19th, we’ll put him in a chase and a hurdle race on that card, he’s jumped well enough in the circumstances on both his chase starts, but I wouldn’t be afraid to switch him back to hurdles if that race looked the better option. He ran his nicest race to date when finishing second at Lingfield over hurdles this time last year, so we know he goes well there even if the ground was testing."
Cave Article
Our progressive young chaser hasn't had a run since the end of August but is nearing a return now. After a busy first half of the year, where he ran eight times in the first eight months, including two victories and four top three finishes, trainer Christian Williams wanted to give him an extended break to allow him to come back stronger in 2026. His two wins, which came at Hereford in April and Southwell in June, saw his mark rise to 90, however that has dropped back down two 87 as a result of his last couple of unplaced efforts.
WATCH: Cave Article in a playful mood with one of his stablemates in Ogmore-by-Sea
We spoke with Christian earlier this week and this is what he had to say on Cave Article:
"Cave Article is looking great since coming back in from his break. We've just had him clipped so he's ready to go when the time comes and he's enjoying being back in his work and in great form after a few months in the field.
We're looking forward to running him, I'd say he might be around four to five weeks away from being ready to head back to the racecourse so we'll keep exercising and schooling with him at home whilst we look for a suitable race for him in the book before working back from there.
He certainly looks to have strengthened up in his time off and as we head into his third year on the racecourse we'll be looking to add to the three wins over fences that he's already achieved."
I look forward to seeing a few of you at Cave Article's next race wherever that might be."
Katalyst
Our now three-year-old filly had an interesting and active first season on the racecourse after joining the Coral Racing Club in the middle of 2025. Despite racking up five runs in her career to date, it hasn't all been plain sailing with Katalyst, which was especially evident in what was supposed to be her debut run for the club at Newbury in June, where she refused to enter the stalls after getting worked up before the race. Following that incident, she was required to undergo further stalls testing, to make sure she would go into the gates the next time she was on course. Thankfully, she passed her stalls test with flying colours and hasn't shown sides of getting agitated in the pre-race formalities since.
Her debut eventually came in August at Chepstow where she was slowly away from the stalls and showed signs of greenness throughout. Her next run was arguably the most promising of her career so far, where she finished fifth at Kempton behind representatives from the powerful operations of Godolphin, Wathnan, Cheveley Park and Qatar. She took an early lead before taking the sweeping bend at Kempton in touch with the powerhouses that were always likely to be contending at the finish. At the cutaway it looked as though she might pick up, but ultimately the turn of foot from those in front got the better of her and she came home a clear fifth, with a good distance both in front and behind her.
In the final three runs of her campaign she continued to show some signs of promise as she stepped up from six furlongs to seven, with her final start coming over the mile trip. Trainer Chris Grassick was hopeful of getting one final run into her before the turn of the year, but unfortunately no suitable targets cme around.
The future looks bright for Katalyst, with a reasonable mark of 65 to work with going forward, as well as more runs planned over the mile trip, and potentially further. We caught up with Chris over the festive period and this is what he had to say about Katalyst's future.
WATCH: Chris Grassick looks ahead to 2026 with Katalyst
Diamond Days
Diamond Days has had a steady start to the 2025/26 jumps season since coming back from an extended summer break in November with just three runs. He kicked his campaign off with his sixth start over hurdles at Fontwell where he came home in third place over an extended 2m1f trip. Following that promising performance, trainer Joe Tizzard confirmed that he would be campaigned over fences for the rest of the season, as he had been schooling over the larger flights at home, and was excelling in all of his work at Venn Farm.
Less than two weeks later, Diamond Days took on his first chase over 2m4f at Lingfield, a course where we've seen him perform admirably in the past. He looked good for the majority of the contest, taking many of the fences fluently and maintaining a strong position within the field of five. A slight mistake at the tenth fence dropped him back in the pack and it looked as though his effort might peter out at that point, but he battled back gallantly under the ride of Freddie Gingell, who galvanised him at the end of the race to storm home in a very tight photo for second place.
Although he came out on the wrong side of that photo, the fourth place finish on the day doesn't tell the whole story, as he was looking finished in the race before picking up the bit once more and rallying home to finish only two lengths down on the winner.
Diamond Days at home with Joe Tizzard and Brendan Powell
Diamond Days would only have one more run in 2025 following that performance when stepping up in trip to 2m5½f. Unfortunately the conditions were testing to say the least that day, with the bottomless ground really making a dent in Diamond Days' chances of putting in a good performance. After plenty of market support throughout the day, he was backed into the 7/4 favourite, however he came home a well beaten fifth.
Joe decided to put him away for the festive period after that effort and also gave him his flu jab. With the recent cold spell it's not been easy for many trainers and their yards, however, when we spoke with him a couple of days ago he gave us a positive update on the situation at Venn Farm.
"With the team working hard, we’ve managed to keep our woodchip gallop going through this cold spell. We got down to minus six degrees here one night, but even that didn’t stop us, so all the horses have cantered every day, meaning we’ve not lost any fitness edge, and as long as the weather improves, and we don’t get any great snowfall, we should be all systems go again next week.
Diamond Days has got over the little setback that caused his disappointing Fontwell run. We treated him for a week, and since then he’s been going nicely at home. It really was just a case of him picking up a bug, like we as humans get colds at this time of year. We took the opportunity to give him his flu jab as well, so now that’s out of the way, we can crack on with him.
I’m looking at the meeting at Lingfield on Monday 19th, we’ll put him in a chase and a hurdle race on that card, he’s jumped well enough in the circumstances on both his chase starts, but I wouldn’t be afraid to switch him back to hurdles if that race looked the better option. He ran his nicest race to date when finishing second at Lingfield over hurdles this time last year, so we know he goes well there even if the ground was testing."
Cave Article
Our progressive young chaser hasn't had a run since the end of August but is nearing a return now. After a busy first half of the year, where he ran eight times in the first eight months, including two victories and four top three finishes, trainer Christian Williams wanted to give him an extended break to allow him to come back stronger in 2026. His two wins, which came at Hereford in April and Southwell in June, saw his mark rise to 90, however that has dropped back down two 87 as a result of his last couple of unplaced efforts.
WATCH: Cave Article in a playful mood with one of his stablemates in Ogmore-by-Sea
We spoke with Christian earlier this week and this is what he had to say on Cave Article:
"Cave Article is looking great since coming back in from his break. We've just had him clipped so he's ready to go when the time comes and he's enjoying being back in his work and in great form after a few months in the field.
We're looking forward to running him, I'd say he might be around four to five weeks away from being ready to head back to the racecourse so we'll keep exercising and schooling with him at home whilst we look for a suitable race for him in the book before working back from there.
He certainly looks to have strengthened up in his time off and as we head into his third year on the racecourse we'll be looking to add to the three wins over fences that he's already achieved."
I look forward to seeing a few of you at Cave Article's next race wherever that might be."
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