All my sons - and the Good Pub Guide, chapter one

I'd like to say that our team is flying, but sadly I can't. So I'll say something not entirely dissimilar (well, it is actually very, very dissimilar, but at first glance they look a little bit alike) which is that our former inmates are flying. That's not really something to boast about, as you'd hate to be the type of trainer whose horses always improve when they move on, but in this instance I don't think I've too much to be abashed about: in fact, I don't think we've ever had a horse make abnormal improvement after leaving, which is probably the thing I'm most proud of from my training career thus far. I like horses to hold their form after they've gone, or if they clearly have improvement to come to find it, as this shows that I haven't knackered them during their time here, but I'd be very ashamed if a horse ever left here and improved significantly beyond what had seemed likely.

Anyway, our first former inmate to thrive recently has been Sangita, who bred her first winner yesterday when What's Up Pussycat won for David Wachman at Cork yesterday, owned by two of John Magnier's children. This Danehill Dancer two-year-old filly now has form figures of 221, which is great. Sangita, an extremely small liver chestnut daughter of Royal Academny, is one of the very few horses to win a race in my colours (in fact, I think she's the only horse ever to win on the flat in my colours outside selling company), but she was actually owned by John and Terre McNamara of Golden Vale Stud, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. Hers was a very successful project. I was sitting with John when he bought her out of Andreas Wohler's stable at the December Sale a few years ago for something like 3,000 gns, and was able to encourage him to bid by telling him that her older half-brother had won a Listed race in Italy the previous month, a fact which was not in the catalogue and not generally known. Anyway, John bought her and I rashly agreed to lease her from them, which really was rash because Wohler had been racing her in the weakest company possible in East Germany, in races worth a small amount of hundred quid, and she was still a maiden after two years of trying. Anyway, all was well that ended well, as ten months later she won a two-mile apprentice handicap at Warwick, aided by a light weight, stall one, and the best rider (Lisa Jones) in the race. John and Terre had her covered by Xaar and sold her, for a good profit, in foal - and now a few years down the track she's bred what I believe is her first winner with what I believe is her second foal. I don't know what happened to the Xaar.

Going back another day, we went to Sandown where Brief ran another nice race for fourth (he actually finished fifth, but the third weighed in light) in a competitive handicap. Two races beforehand, Cheveton recorded his first win - yes, the same Cheveton whose white face you can see if you go to the Photo Gallery and scroll down. We had him as a two-year-old, but sadly some filling appeared on one of his front tendons when he was getting ready for his debut, so I took him out of work straightaway. David Dugdale, our excellent vet, scanned the tendon and confirmed the strain, but opined that, with a good rest and a very gradual build-up, he ought to make a complete recovery. Which is what has happened: he made his debut a little more than a year later, and a further five months on has now run probably six times for a couple of places and now a win at Sandown. If a trainer ever tells you that he is pleased to see one of his former inmates win a race, he is likely to be lying, particularly if it is with a horse whom he didn't want to see go, but in this case I was so pleased to see Cheveton win for Michael and Kim Oseman, two really nice people, that that is something which I can say.

And the day before that we'd witnessed another success for another horse who began her career here but who had moved on before her first race. Our Faye was in training here as a two-year-old in 2005. She had no soundness problems, but she was clearly an immature horse and, after she'd had a few gallops towards the end of the summer, I felt that there would be nothing to be gained from running her that year, and that doing so would be more likely to compromise her long-term career than benefit it. So she went off for a spell with the advice that a good long break would see her an improved horse and a nice prospect, but sadly when she finished that break she went elsewhere. Anyway, she won one of her seven starts as a three-year-old, began her four-year-old career on a mark of 69 and then made continued improvement throughout the year, winning four consecutive races - culminating in a win at the Shergar Cup meeting rated 82 - before running second in a mares' Listed race. And last Friday she scored her sixth career success, winning at Goodwood off 82. What was actually rather nice was that, when interviewed on the BBC after her Shergar Cup success, Sylvester Kirk, in reply to the question, "Why do you think she has improved so much from three to four?", said, "Well, she was trained by John Berry at two and he never ran her, which was the best thing which could have happened to her". I don't really know Sylvester at all, but was very touched that he said that, because it was nice to know that someone thought I'd done something right.

To the list of horses who've gone on to glory, we can add Im Ova Ere Dad, a five-year-old who recorded his seventh win when scoring at Goodwood a week previously. This horse was never actually on the team, as my connection with him began and ended at the 2004 Fairyhouse Yearling Sale. I was asked to look out for a horse with some potential, and noticed that this colt, by Second Empire, hadn't fetched his reserve, which was 10,000 Euros. I suggested that this horse would be a good buy at that sum, and suggested that an offer of this figure be made, with the request that the vendors take him home and look after him for another six months, with that agistment being thrown into the deal, so that he could then be brought to England in the spring of his two-year-old career to be broken and put into training. I had mistakenly got the impression that I was to be the trainer when the horse did go into training, but realised my misconception when the purchaser rang me the following spring to ask me how much he owed me for my advice at the sale (stupidly I said that he owed me nothing) and to reassure me that I was still on the list of possible trainers for the horse, which made it pretty plain that he'd be going elsewhere. Which he did; but I still enjoy following his progress, and getting a small feeling of satisfaction whenever he wins. I actually didn't get things right, because I'd been asked to find a horse with potential to go jumping as well as to run on the Flat and, although Im Ova Ere Dad has run over hurdles, he doesn't stay the two miles, and the nine furlongs over which he won at Goodwood is probably just about far enough for him. But I hope that his connections consider him well bought, even if he doesn't fit the bill exactly.

To move on to horses who compete at a considerably more exalted level, I called in this afternoon to the antipodean corner of Geoff Wragg's stable to wish tomorrow's runners - Takeover Target and Magnus - good luck. Takeover Target was having a shampoo when I was there, which I enjoyed watching. I'm sure that he's going to run two more great races this week, and fingers crossed Magnus should put up a bold show tomorrow. I was pleased to be able to congratulate Peter Moody on his win with Tan Tat Joy at Sandown (Vic, not UK) on Saturday, but how much we can gleam about a stable being in form when studying the results in a different hemisphere is a moot point. I took in a wild goose chase on the way home because Joe Janiak told me that I'd find the redoutable Father Joe Giaccobbe in the Wagon & Horses pub on the High Street, so I called in there, but The (former) Godfather of Winning Post had moved on by the time I got there so I didn't linger. Had I had time on my hands I would have done though, because - although spending the afternoon, or evening come to that, in the pub isn't really my scene - going in there reminded me of what an excellent, proper racing pub it is. Even at that time of day there was good company in there, and I'd say that any racing enthusiast who ever wants to go somewhere for a drink couldn't go wrong by heading in there.