No place like home

I should currently be driving to Sandown to saddle Brief, but I'm afraid that I'm taking the easy way out and will be watching on Racing UK. I don't like doing this: I think it's unprofessional and discourteous for a trainer to have a runner and not be there if it is feasible, plus one ought to question why one is racing horses if one didn't want to be there when they ran. However, I'm not feeling too well and, as Garrison Keilor quotes an old Wobegonian saying, "There's no place like home if you're not feeling well". I don't think it's anything more sinister than the effects of getting a bit run-down, but the last 24 hours I've been feeling a bit queasy and very lack-lustre, alternating between very hot and very cold, and definitely haven't "eaten up". So an afternoon quietly drinking Lucozade at home seems the prudent course of action; and, fingers crossed, I'll be feeling better, rather than worse, tomorrow.

I did ride out this morning so I wasn't feeling too sorry for myself. What was very fortunate was that I enjoyed two really nice rides. Hugh and I galloped Anis Etoile and Polish Precedent six furlongs along the Cambridge Road all-weather and that was very straightforward. They are good work-mates because they are both equally forward/backward and equally good/bad (delete as applicable!). They're two nice fillies who are still a month away from being fit enough to run and a month away from being switched on enough to run - and they're probably both at least six months away from being mature enough to run to anything like their full potential. But I've been working on the assumption that they should both be up for a run or two in the latter stages of this season - the initial stages of a three-year-old's racing season can prove a lot more straightforward if the horse has run at two - and today's gallop did nothing to alter that opinion. I was, though, scratching my head a bit once we'd cantered down to the start, because Polly made anything but a positive impression on me, but once we were doing the proper work she was much more focussed and professional, so we came home happily looking forward to the next month's progress with these two nice young horses.

And then my next lot was really easy: it was Gracie's final stalls session prior to her debut on Friday, but I wasn't riding her. Adrian McCarthy is going to ride her in the race (as this subsequent picture from Newmarket shows) and he came in to ride her today, so all I had to do was accompany him on Pantomime Prince, which was really straightforward. And, I'm pleased to say, so was Adrian's job. Gracie is a sweet filly but she is often on her toes, and horses like that very often have trouble with the stalls. We had that confirmed to us a few days ago, but I'm pleased to say that - thanks to some help from Chris and Shelley Dwyer - she now seems to have put her stalls worries behind her, so fingers crossed things should go well on Friday.

And let's hope that things go well today. Brief's very straightforward and Micky knows him so well, so let's hope that I'll be raising a glass of Lucozade a bit later on.