My mistake

Another day of the same mix of light and shade. It's lovely when the sun's out and it's pretty dismal when it's grey (and often snowing as well) and we've been alternating between the two with surprising speed. We took four horses down to the Al Bahathri to gallop this morning just before 9 o'clock and it was grey enough when we set out - but when we got to the start of the gallop, we were suddenly in the clear and the sun, rising to our right above the Limekilns, made the snow-covered ground and frost-covered trees look inspiring. It was great. And then it resumed snowing not long after we returned home! These three photographs of basically the same view in the yard - taken at 8.15, 9.40 and 10.00 - show how a cold but bright dawn, seemingly set for a crystal-clear day, can lead into a snowy morning.

Oh yes, by the way, before I go any farther I should apologise for a mistake which I think I made yesterday. I suspect that I made a mistake in saying that George Peckham was on Travado: Ed Dunlop has two or three big dark brown hacks, and the problem with taking photographs is that, if one isn't very good at it, one devotes so much attention to the process of taking the photographs that one doesn't really pay that much attention to the subject - so, while it's hard to see the details of the horse in the photograph clearly, I suspect that that horse is one of Ed's less distinguished hacks because this one seems to lack quite the blackness and the massive magnificence of the great Travado. But that's by the by - and from my Peckham-centric point of view, the aim was to get a photograph of George (to make up for my inability to photograph his father) and that was certainly achieved.

Today, inevitably, must rank as one of the dullest Saturdays of the year as regards the racing, with the meetings at Lingfield and Kempton, although spectacular with the Polytrack surfaces cut through a blanket of snow, of little significance in the greater racing picture. However, it's all sport and there's a story behind every winner - as was the case yesterday, when there was a very nice result for Exeter Road when Jonathan Jay trained a winner, Raimond Ridge. This was nice enough in itself because Jonathan's has been one of the strings which has not missed a beat through the bad weather which makes the success deserved, but it was extra-special because it was the first winner ridden by Jonathan's apprentice Matthew Cosham, who rode the horse nicely. Matthew was formerly apprenticed to Jeremy Naylor, but he joined Jonathan in the autumn and has impressed me as a good rider and, as far as I can tell, a conscientious and diligent worker. I was pleased to see him ride what I hope will be the first of many winners. He is seen in the photograph at the top of this chapter in the middle of Jonathan's string of three, coming home across the Severals one day at the start of the pre-Christmas freeze-up, with the experienced Simon Scott, a former long-time Michael Stoute employee, on the horse messing around in front and Kylie Wright at the back. That victory was one of several Newmarket-trained successes yesterday, with Stuart Williams also sending out yet another winner and Des Donovan also hitting the target. Coincidentally, I took a photograph of a couple of Des' horses, ridden by Eoin "Sully" Sullivan and the conditional jumps jockey Tim Bailey, coming onto the Severals yesterday. This photograph gives a clue to Des' background: note the non-matching and uninitialed sheets on the two horses, which is perfect for a Barney Curley protege. As Des worked for Barney for years, I am sure that making the horses as anonymous as possible would be second nature to him! And I'm sure that the very last thing which Barney would do would be to do something as eye-catching as Michael Bell's maneouvure (as reported in today's Racing Post) of taking the string down the High Street and along the Bury Road (as shown here a couple of days ago) between Fitzroy House and the Severals: that's really annoucing your and your horses' presence! Michael clearly felt that the usual horsewalk was not safe enough so the High Street it was. We have a similar problem with part of our route unsafe for riding (Exeter Road - although even that's safe as of mid-morning today, thanks to a request from Mark Tompkins for the Jockey Club's gritter to come our way) but we solve it by leading the horses and only getting on them once we have reached terra firma. I find that a satisfactory solution - but it would be a dull world if we all thought the same!