A long time in ... whatever

Come this evening, it will be a week since our abortive trip to Wolverhampton. Amazing: it seems much more that a week ago. We're told that a week's a long time in politics, but it's also true that it can be a very long time in whatever business it is that I'm involved with (times like the past week make it plain that merely to say that I'm training horses grossly over-simplifies what's involved). There are time you start pondering the existence of eventual karma, and wonder if perhaps you might have murdered a priest in a previous life, but the sun still rises - gloriously, if today is anything to go by - and life goes on. (On the subject of karma, incidentally, it might be worth refreshing your memories about one of the best sentences ever written in the Racing Post. James Willoughby was, predictably, the author. You might actually not have read it when it came out, because it was contained in a race preview, and you might share my view that race previews in general are not worth reading - those written by James are the glorious exceptions - because the list of runners and riders, supported by the form book if one needs to refresh one's memory, is usually preview enough. Anyway, Lennon was running in a big race, I think it was the Tolworth Hurdle, a couple of seasons ago. James made the point that it would be a nice piece of natural justice if Lennon were to salute, because his stable has suffered several cases of bad luck in the past few days, and he concluded the point by saying, "Imagine if Lennon could provide instant karma for Howard Johnson!").

On the plus side, this week has had its memorable moments. My first trip to Bangor was one of these. It's a lovely place, we were there on a lovely day, and I am very pleased now to be able to say that I have visited every racecourse in Britain. I enjoyed every part of the outing except the race itself, during which things again didn't go according to plan for Lady Suffragette. I'd have been more annoyed if I had backed her, which I had contemplated doing (and I'm afraid that to anyone who asked me my opinion I passed on the view that I believed that she had good each-way claims). Fortunately I didn't, but I may well do next time. Still, she came home unharmed, which was more than one could say for one of David Pipe's two runners in the race. Happily, though, I believe that that horse, who was very lame in his near hind leg after the race, will live, if not to fight another day, but to take up a less demanding role, and it was very impressive to see David so concerned for the horse's welfare in the stable yard long after the race as darkness descended: there wouldn't be many trainers with such large strings who would have been doing the same in such circumstances. He is definitely his father's son, and it is very good to see that the family stable remains in very safe hands. The funny thing about this trip was that I'd been getting quite excited for a while about completing visiting Bangor and thus completing the full house of racecourses, so I was rather taken aback as we eventually pulled into the stable yard at what is a quintessentially British National Hunt course: the first person I saw was Terry Lucas, and I thought to myself, "Bloody hell, I've finally got here, and an Australian flat jockey has beaten me to it!".

I had enjoyed a similar chuckle the previous day after a meeting of the East Anglian branch of the National Trainers' Federation. I suppose this could be described as politics; if so, I can definitely say that two and a quarter hours are a long time in politics, because we were taken off on more pointless tangents, mostly by two loud-mouths whose presence we were forced to tolerate (names withheld to protect the guilty), than even in one of my longest blog postings. A couple of people had already left by the time I decided I'd had enough, at which point I quietly asked Rupert Arnold, who runs the Federation, whether I was right in believing that I wouldn't miss anything important if I left at that point. In reply, he smiled wryly and said, "You could have left half an hour ago and not missed anything important". As always happens at these things, finding a topic on which everyone agrees is impossible, and one of the highlights had been when Rupert asked us for a show of hands on one particular suggestion that might be put forward by 'The Horsemen's Group': almost exactly half of those present raised their hands to show that they were in favour, at which point Stuart Williams, who was in the chair by virtue of being the area vice-president and the area president being absent, threw back his arms in disbelief and cried, "Turkeys voting for Christmas!". But the real highlight came when I sent Stuart a text message afterwards to congratulate him on his bon mot, and also to ask whether we could have the loud-mouths barred; the reply was, "I think barring those two would be the only thing we would all agree on".

And if things like that can't bring a smile to one's face, the horses always can do so. It's been very cold in the mornings with the sky so clear that the frosts are hard, but this has made for beautiful days, and yesterday made for excellent photographic conditions as our Halling yearling was ridden by Martha for the first time. She, like the others, has been very good, and full marks to David for doing the bulk of the ground work, and to Martha for being the first to ride the four horses. If the remainder of these horses' careers continue as smoothly as things have gone so far, we'll be very lucky indeed.