By and large a nice week, so far

Monday was an interesting and pleasant day; and I say that despite having spent nine hours of it driving. But Britain on a nice spring day is a lovely place (well, that is true for large parts of it) and Monday was a nice spring day, so the drive to Taunton was rather enjoyable. Take Me There ran very well to finish a good second, and it was a very happy band of people who supported him - including my father, who is a steward there but who stood down from his duties for that race to avoid any potential conflict of interest, and watched the race with us instead. I don't think I have ever seen the horse looking better, and he was given a predictably sound ride by Paddy Brennan, but unfortunately he just found one, probably quite good, horse too good for him on the day. And when they run well and come home safely, one can never be unhappy.

Monday was also memorable for me in that the bloodstock pages of that day's Racing Post contained an article which I had written my article, my having been asked to fill the slot. As John Osbourne and Paul Thorman had previously written very good pieces in previous weeks I felt under a bit of pressure, and coming up with a suitable topic when one has been given carte blanche as regards subject matter (other than that the article had to be bloodstock-related, obviously) is easier said than done. After all, one doesn't want to present what one thinks of as a satisfactory essay and be told that it is merely a collection of sentences! After much cogitation, then, I settled on overproduction and breeders' prizes as my topic. My view - that breeders' prizes are hard to justify at present (if ever) - is plainly going to be one which many recipients of such prizes would prefer to contradict, so I am sure that my article won't have pleased all the people, but by and large the feedback which I have received has been very positive, with even a few people who might be expected to take a different view having commented that the article was logically sound. So that was good.

What was also good was the fact that Monday was not merely a lovely spring day on the road to and at Taunton, but also in Newmarket. This was very well timed because the Racing Post's very good columnist Steve Dennis was in town to glean inspiration for a prelude to the new season. He called in here on arrival and then headed up to the Heath with Emma. They will have had a really nice time there on such a splendid morning - and Emma has taken some lovely photographs which support this contention - and then Steve afterwards had a ride on Panto, going for a tour with Hugh on Brief Goodbye. I hope he enjoyed the trip, and look forward to reading about it in, I think, tomorrow's Racing Post.

If these have been the high points of the week, the low points have included a trip to the dentist and what might have been a trip to the morgue if an incredibly stupid 'bus driver hadn't woken up at the last moment. Dangerous occurences on the road crossings seem to be a recurring theme in this blog, and we just have to get used to the fact that some drivers from out of town are always going to be taken unawares - and that some who should know better just don't give a s**t about the lives of horses or riders if there is a chance of shortening their journey by a few seconds. However, you'd hope that the 'bus drivers wouldn't present too serious a danger. You can imagine our shock, therefore, when we were crossing the Bury Road by the Severals, a van having stopped to let us by, when the 'bus coming out of town bound for Bury accelerated to overtake the stationary van. Thankfully the driver realised his mistake before any collision had taken place and had time to effect an emergency stop, but it really was a worrying illustration of what we are up against. And Forest Heath District Council seems to feel that there is not enough traffic on the town's roads!