Reflections on a lovely holiday

This is terribly slack. It's 21st January and this is only my second post of the month. We've had two runners who have both run really well - To Be Or Not To Be and Take Me There both finishing second - and there's been not a word from me (although Emma has beaten me to it by putting up a news story this morning). Whether this counts as an excuse or not I don't know, but the reason for my lack of blogging has been that we were on holiday. Two weeks in Australia (coinciding with the coldest weather in England for decades - how well timed was that?) has to count as the holiday from heaven. We arrived there on the first Sunday in January and left exactly two weeks later, and I can count myself blessed to have enjoyed a lovely time, and to have been the recipient of so much kindness and hospitality during the trip. And the icing on the cake has been that we arrived back (to relatively decent weather) to find the place and the horses in superb condition, which really is a tribute to Martha and, particularly, Hugh, who have evidently worked hard and conscientiously in our absence.

Long flights have become so much less taxing now that the in-flight entertainment is so good, with one able to chose which movies one watches, and when one watches them. So we arrived relatively fresh at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne on the Sunday evening, where we were met by our marvellous host Joff Dumas. When we'd stayed with Joff in 2006 he'd vacated his bedroom for us and slept instead on the sofa because his spare room wasn't at the time yet habitable and - guess what? It still isn't, so once again we slept in comfort while he stretched out on the couch downstairs.

Australia is the country where I most enjoy being, and Victoria is my favourite state. Since my first trip there in 1990 (when again Joff was the host, although we both had bedrooms then as he was living with him mum at the time) I have been lucky enough to visit a further five times and I have collected so many happy memories. So each visit is not only a new pleasure in itself, but is also a happy stroll down memory lane. One of the loveliest places there which I have now been lucky enough to visit several times is Delatite, one of the most historic farms in the High Country, beyond Mansfield in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. This is the home of the Richie family, and also of the horses who race for the Empire, the breeding and racing partnership of which Joff is syndicate manager. Delatite was duly top of our 'must do' list, so we headed for the hills on the Tuesday of the first week, having taken things easy on the Monday with a trip into the city, where seeing Phar Lap in the Museum followed by a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria set us up nicely for dinner chez Joff with the irrepressible Richard Sims and his ultra-patient partner Ellie, and with the string of "brahmas" which invariably follow hot on Dickie's heels. Our three days at Delatite, staying in 'Bob's Cottage', were a true delight. It's a little corner of heaven, and the hospitality we received from Mark and Fenella Richie and from Tony and Joan Tehan - plus from Mark's parents in the homestead - was the icing on the cake. One lovely outing there came on the Thursday morning when Joff, Emma and I met up with Tony Tehan to head over to Benalla, where the Empire's star mare Joolzy (Spaceage Juliet) is trained by Anne Taylor. We watched her exercise and were given breakfast in Anne's confusingly-named Delatite Lodge, and enjoyed a tour of Benalla's beautiful art gallery before heading back to Mansfield. The day ended with dinner in Tony and Anne's house, where the Aussies beat the Poms in a croquet ashes test. It was hard to leave the High Country on the next day to head back to town, but the prospect of a Moonee Valley night meeting helped.

We had our second race-meeting the next day when it was Caulfield in the afternoon. Thanks to Richard Sims, my day at Caulfield began much earlier than that, though, because Richard and I enjoyed the company of one of the trainers there, Colin Little, from 6am onwards. Colin is a trainer I have long admired - when I worked at Caulfield for Russell Cleland in 1991 I always liked the way that Colin trained, and admired the condition of his horses - and my opinion was consolidated this time by watching his horses go about their business. It speaks volumes for his astuteness that, of the fifteen or so horses he was working that morning, two of them (El Segundo and Blutigeroo) are Group One winners. I didn't actually see either in action as they had worked before we got there, but we did see arguably the two best horses in the country - Weekend Hussler and Light Fantastic, trained respectively by Ross Macdonald and Mick Price - doing their work. Richard co-bred and part-owns a three-year-old maiden in Colin's stable, Kalatruce, and we watched him work too. He's a nice young horse, but perhaps the most impressive aspect of his solo exercise was the time-keeping of his jockey Michelle Payne: sent out to run six furlongs in even time (15 sec/furlong), she rated him so accurately that he covered the distance, according to Colin's stop-watch, in 1 minute 29.17 seconds! After our time with Colin, we went from one extreme to the other as we then enjoyed the brahmafest which is time spent with Clinton Macdonald, son of Ross and trainer of one of the Empire's horses Archie (Miss Freelove). Colin and Clinton would be chalk and cheese as trainers, but there are, of course, many ways to skin a cat, and Clinton is himself a Group One-winning trainer (courtesy of Regal Roller, whose unraced Redoute's Choice half-brother we saw), while of course the family stable contains the reigning Horse of the Year Weekend Hussler (admittedly trained by Ross rather than Clinton).

Michael Tidmarsh flew down for the weekend to join us, which was great. Catching up with Michael was always going to be one of the main highlights of the holiday, but of course there's only so much ground one can cover in two weeks in such a big country, so Michael coming down from Brisbane made planning the itinerary a lot easier. Richard and I collected him from Tullamarine after the morning's work-watching, and we all enjoyed a really pleasant afternoon at the races before having dinner in a local restaurant, where Richard's brother Robert joined the festivities. Sunday morning featured a tour of Doxa Lodge, Richard's superbly-appointed equestrian property / white elephant (delete as appropriate) in the outer suburb of Keysborough before we bade Michael farewell as Joff and his girlfriend Wendy plus Emma and I headed for the airport to fly to Sydney. Our host there was Cameron Plant, a regular visitor to Newmarket and a lynchpin of the Empire as well as a part-owner of Jenny Dawson, while we also enjoyed the hospitality of Dan and Lisa Happell to make it a real gathering of the NSW branch of the Empire. We actually spent very little time in Sydney as, with Cameron at the wheel, the five of us headed to the Hunter Valley, where we enjoyed the hospitality of Darley and had the thrill of seeing five beautiful studs (Darley's main stud at Aberdeen plus the main Woodlands farm - now Darley-owned, of course - at Denman, plus Arrowfield, Vinery - formerly Segenhoe, complete with Kaoru Star's grave - and Coolmore) and a whole host of great horses including Redoute's Choice, Encosta De Lago, Octagonal, Lonhro, Canny Lad, Commands, Testa Rossa, Exceed And Excel, Refuse To Bend (sire of the Empire's yearling filly ex Thelma (I Want You Back), whom we had seen at Delatite), Royal Academy, Hussonet, Starcraft, Danzero, Flying Spur, Haradasun, Fastnet Rock, Success Express (aged 24 but looking older and now in retirement), Carnegie, Tiger Hill and Nadeem.

The Hunter Valley is a remarkable place, with the wineries and the coal mines joining the studs in defining the region, and it is always a pleasure to visit. Our return to Sydney, however, contained the pleasure of enabling us finally to meet Cameron's partner Steph, but we then had to bid them farewell at the airport on Thursday morning for our return south. We gave Joff no let-up on his driving duties on our return as we headed out to Ballarat for another afternoon at the races, having called in to 'Living Legends' en route; this lovely retirement farm is currently home to Might And Power, Better Loosen Up, Fields Of Omagh, Paris Lane, Rogan Josh, Silent Witness and Regal Roller. Ballarat is reknowned for being one of the coldest places in Victoria (outside of the mountains, obviously) but on a lovely summer's day it was glorious. Among Ballarat's claims to fame are that it has been home to two of racing's greatest families, the Paynes and the Smerdons and, after enjoying the racecourse's museum which contains numerous photographs of Smerdon-trained and -ridden winners over the decades, it was disappointing that we failed to back the Robert Smerdon-trained winner (trained at Caulfield admittedly, whither Robert Smerdon re-located a few years ago) of the showcase handicap, especially as we had seen her sire (Redoute's Choice) a two days previously and as she was ridden by an old friend Peter Hutchinson, who has recently made a come-back to race-riding after a 7-year absence, which entailed him losing something like 15 kilos. Some readers may remember Peter, son of Ron, riding as an apprentice in the UK in the mid '80s, but he's better known for riding in the late '80s and early '90s for the Hayes family in both Adelaide (where he was twice champion jockey) and Melbourne, and includes on his CV a Caulfield Cup (on the Sheikh Hamdam-owned, David Hayes-trained Fraar) and an AJC Oaks (on the Russell Cleland-trained My Brilliant Star).

We used our last three days at least as well as we'd used the earlier ones. On Friday morning Joff took us down to Cranbourne, a racecourse/training centre in the outer south-eastern suburbs where the Empire's problem child Westy (Stoneage Romeo) has been trained by Quinton Scott. I say 'has been trained' because he has lost his form completely with breathing issues having reared their ugly head, so where that leaves his racing future is currently under debate. He is, though, a three-time winner and a lovely big horse, and it was good to see him and his affable trainer, who regaled us with stories of his visits to Kingsclere with his former foreman Tony Noonan and of enduring Richard Sims as a work-experience pupil in the early '80s. I met up with Richard again later that day as the Winning Post staff kindly met me for lunch, while Joff's brother David and sister-in-law Emma treated us to an excellent dinner that evening. David is one of the most entertaining Empire email correspondents (as is another of that evening's diners, Clive Baldwin) so it was a most entertaining evening.

Richard and I enjoyed another early-morning trackwork outing on Saturday - Mornington this time - when a good welcome from the likes of Pat Carey, Mark Riley and Tony Noonan made for a thoroughly pleasant morning. Richard couldn't make the races in the afternoon as he had commitments on the squash court, so he missed a great card at Flemington, where the highlight was Michelle Payne riding a double including the featured Chester Manifold Stakes (Listed), although nationwide the highlight was the hugely impressive winning debut of the Gai Waterhouse-trained two-year-old More Joyous (by More Than Ready ex Sunday Joy, by Sunday Silence) whose first three dams are all Oaks winners but who showed so much brilliance on debut that she is now Golden Slipper favourite. Although we were only watching on television from another state, it was a thrill to witness such an exciting performance sort of 'live'. Wendy cooked a lovely dinner for six that evening (including Richard and Ellie) while we had two more social meals on the Sunday, our final day. Peter Hutchinson joined Joff, Richard, Ellie and me for a really brahmatic breakfast in Joff's local cafe, after which we said our goodbyes to Richard and Ellie because we were heading off to join a Dumas family brunch gathering in the Botanic Gardens, Joff's younger sister Kate having turned forty the previous day. It was great to spend part of the final day with the complete set of the family who have been so hospitable to me on so many occasions, and in such beautiful surroundings, and then Joff and Wendy gave us a final treat of a trip to Royal Melbourne Golf Club, where my lack of prowess was allowed to go relatively unexposed as we restricted ourself to practice driving and then a putting competition. A final drive home along the bayside in the evening sunshine followed by dinner was a lovely way to end a perfect holiday.

One actually wants holidays to seem too short: the ones which seem too long are the unsuccessful ones. So we're now back after a lovely holiday, and finding that things have clearly run so smoothly in our absence has made it very easy to come home. Take Me There's excellent run yesterday was a great welcome-home present, and now we have the long-awaited debut of Ex Con to look forward to on Friday, which I'm really excited about. But the final plaudits have to go to anyone who has managed to read this far: if you have done so, I hope that I haven't bored you too much with what has been, even by more normal standards, a very self-indulgent chapter.