Storms

I seem to remember that this weekend was very stormy a couple of years ago, when the Sunday of the Cheltenham Open meeting had the last race, a bumper, abandoned because the holes in the ground from where the hurdles had been taken out were filling up with water as the rain lashed down. (Which reminds me that I hope that there will be no repetition tomorrow, with Gemma due to make her race-riding debut in the charity race after the last). And it was very windy. And cold. So much so that Richard Johnson was reported as saying that they were the coldest conditions in which he'd ever ridden, despite the fact that the mercury would clearly have been indicating that the temperature was above freezing. It's useful to remember that, because by comparison one can reassure oneself that this weekend isn't so bad after all. But it is still bloody stormy all the same.

The storms seemed to start on Thursday. Emma and I went to Cheltenham to a veterinary conference, which was interesting. The day started glorious, but when we went out to the car park during the lunch interval to take the dogs for a walk we could see storm clouds heading our way. And sure enough it began to rain hard during the afternoon, and the 3+ hour drive home was conducted entirely in rain. And it's been raining pretty much ever since. (It's now Saturday evening). I wasn't looking forward to the drive to Lingfield as we were forecast gale force winds as well, but as things turned out it wasn't too bad, the worst of the winds not arriving until today (and not reaching here at all): today apparently the winds have been 100mph on the south coast, and the Dartford Bridge, over which I drove relatively comfortably yesterday, has been closed because of them. But it's been very mild, there have been odd gaps in the rain, and all in all it hasn't been too bad. Particularly during the parts I've been indoors. And especially during the parts I've been asleep.


The trip to Lingfield turned out to be our only day at the races this week, because Magners (Ireland Dancer) was duly eliminated from his engagements. But he'll try again during the forthcoming week. Stardust Memories (pictured after the race) ran on Friday and she continued her progression of showing just a little more each time. She actually travelled very well for about nine and a half of the 12 furlongs, but got lost when the pressure was on. Still, she looks so young still - there would be plenty of two-year-olds who look older than she is - so I would hope that she will be able to build on what little she has so far done when she resumes as a four-year-old after her forthcoming winter spell.
As invariably happens when he rides for us, Robert Havlin provided a very competent and helpful service, and another pleasing aspect of the afternoon (over and above the fact that it actually stopped raining for our race) was that the winner of the previous race, Tinshu (pictured, returning to the winner's enclosure under Dane O'Neill) was bred by our friends Louise Parry and her brother Peter Steele-Mortimer, breeders of two of our inmates (Batgirl and Rhythm Stick). Tinshu is a very nice three-year-old daughter of Fantastic Light who has won three races this season, and is one of many good advertisements for Pantycoed Stud. Let's hope that our two graduates prove to be similarly proficient racers.

The trip to Cheltenham was also a worthwhile outing. Some of the addresses were more relevant (to my mind) than others, with the talk on tying up being the main drawcard from my point of view. This was a preference which I found quite a lot of the people there shared. It was very interesting to see a smattering of ex-trainers there (Martin Pipe, David Wilson, Gordon Johnston-Houghton) - more of them, in fact, than current trainers. It was particularly, but unsurprisingly, impressive to see Martin Pipe there: you would think that if anyone might be able to feel that he had no more to learn, then Martin would be that man, but clearly his legendary thirst for knowledge has not been quenched, despite the fact that his brain is already a veterinary encyclopaedia. It was also good to see the retired vet Richard Greenwood, former senior partner of what is now the Newmarket Equine Hospital, there, as he too, like Martin, obviously has a dedication to his calling well beyond the norm. Another face I was interested to see was Martin's former jockey Paul Leach. I followed him into the racecourse's Centaur Centre, where the conference was held, thinking that there was something vaguely familiar about him, and it was only subsequently that I was able to put a name to the face. He now, apparently, works at Fonthill Stud. He's a big man now, making it very impressive that he was able to do the weights for race-riding for so long.

And to continue our constant theme of faces from the past, thank you to Problem Walrus for the oil on White Wonder and Mont Blanc. Thinking about it, it's probably a fair assumption that David Dineley would have ridden the former at some stage. I'll ask him about it the next time I bump into him in what used to be Hogg's papershop, which is likely to be a morning in the near future. And to continue the theme of white horses, I reproduce a picture of the white Zabeel three-parts sister to Might And Power.
This from the front of the Derby Day edition of Winning Post three years ago - which as you will see correctly tipped that the Derby would be won by the grey, but not (yet) white, Efficient - as the paper had clearly been tipped the wink about this well-related white foal having been born in New Zealand the previous week. As I say, I recall the foal, who must be a three-year-old now, going through the Magic Millions Sale and, I think, being bought by John Singleton. I think she's in training in Sydney, so any oil on whatever she's done would be much appreciated. We like to keep abreast of these things!