All For Free, or Alf as he is known at home, has been a star for us over the last week, starting off by winning in fantastic style under Alain Cawley at Ascot last Friday. 

It was a great day for his owner Rob Aplin too because it was his birthday and he'd asked me to try to have a runner for him that day, so to get Alf there in such good form was very satisfying. 

Ascot is an amazing racecourse so to have a winner there is always exciting.

Alf seemed to come out of his race at Ascot really well and already held an entry at Ludlow on Wednesday, just five days later.

Although that was a competitive-looking race, it still looked like a potential winning opportunity. 

Once again Alf ran a blinder, jumping for fun and winning in good style.

He'll have a bit of a break now and we'll look to find another  race for him at the end of January.

He's an exciting horse as he is still only five years old so he could give us a lot more fun.

No more runners now until Boxing Day and to think we've got 26 winners on the board already is quite unbelievable. 

I could never have dreamt at the start of the season that we'd have had so much success and it is a credit to my hard-working team, led by Andrew Campbell and Alice Reader, that we are only one winner off our best-ever total with some four months of the season to go.

Unfortunately for them and the rest of the team, though, the horses still need feeding, mucking out and looking after over Christmas and the Boxing Day runners need to be ridden out too, so not much time off for them.

However, we've got our Christmas party tonight which will give them a much deserved chance to let their hair down after months of hard work.

We've got plenty of entries on Boxing Day and over the New Year and so plenty of decisions will have to be made before declarations at 10am today.

It will be a stressful morning as we try to work out which races suit each horse, taking into account the ground and opposition, for instance.

As for the big race on Boxing Day at Kempton, the King George, my tip is for Captain Chris to win it with Richard Johnson on board.  That would be fantastic.  He is around 8-1 in the betting.

Our big hope, though, and most exciting runner is at Chepstow on the day after Boxing Day.

Any Currency, or Woody as he's called in the yard, runs in the Welsh National after an encouraging debut at Sandown a few weeks ago.

It will no doubt be a gruelling test but one thing Woody does is keep galloping and it would be a dream come true to win one of the Nationals.

I couldn't have him in better shape and Andrew, who looks after him and Helen Diment, his work rider are both pleased with him too and will be as nervous as me!

Alice Reader had an early Christmas present last Sunday when her horse Jack's The Lad won at Whitfield point-to-point under Ryan Hatch.

It was a much-deserved success and one that surely makes all the hard work juggling him around her full-time job here worthwhile.

Hopefully that is the first of many wins for Jack's The Lad too.

Although our 18-month old son Harry is still oblivious to Christmas, it is the first year that our three-and-a-half-year-old son Freddie knows what is going on and he is so excited and so it's going to be plenty of fun. 

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas.