It's pleasantly spring-like here today which is very nice: we've got a field-full of horses out the back, and they particularly enjoy their turn-out on a Sunday when they generally won't have been ridden beforehand in the morning. For this reason I like it when the weather is nice on a Sunday as it's annoying if the weather is too bad to turn them out - although, ever able to see a cloud's silver lining, if we do get really bad weather on a Sunday, as we had two weeks ago, I then console myself with the reflection that at least it is happening on a Sunday rather than on a day when we are spending several hours in the saddle. Yesterday's conditions were reasonably pleasant too, which again was nice as we had a few visitors. We had two members of the Tri-Nations Partnership which races Anis here (well, three if one includes Emma), those two being our regular Saturday visitor/helper Steve McCormick and Jane Duscherer - and towards the end of the morning Jane then found herself one of five members present from one or other of the two syndicates which own the two two-year-olds, First Pressing and Silken Thoughts (pictured above walking off the Severals towards the Heath 
yesterday morning, with Silken Thoughts leading the way). It is rare that we have juveniles in training here in the first half of the season, so it makes a pleasant change to have a couple of the go at present - and a pleasant relief, bearing in mind how fragile such immature horses can be, that both have had trouble-free preparations thus far. Prior to these horses going out, Jane, an experience point-to-point rider, had ridden two lots and is seen here going up Long Hill behind Hugh on Anis: fittingly, Jane is on Rhythm Stick, who was bred and is part-owned by Louise Parry and her brother Peter Steele-Mortimer, whom she has known since childhood.A nice Cheltenham warm-up has come courtesy of BBC4, which a few days ago showed (and will repeat tonight) an excellent Irish documentary which follows three horses from Paul Nolan's stable through last National Hunt season. It's very good indeed and has made me keen to follow the progress of any runners at the Festival trained by Nolan, who came out of the programme very well. If you've missed it, there is still ample opportunity to watch it: not only is it due to be repeated tonight, but I am told that it is also viewable on BBC iPlayer. I think that there is due to be another programme from the same series shown on Tuesday night, so I will be keen to see that one too. Of the many memorable moments in the show, perhaps the best was provided by Paul Nolan's father, who summed up racing very well by saying something like: "I don't know much about racing, but what I have learned is that you have no business being in the game if you can't take disappointments, because you get plenty of those; and the other thing I have learned is that you should really enjoy and savour the good days, because they don't come along too often". One couldn't sum things up any better or more realistically than that!
I've just finished reading a lovely book which contains some very good observations. It is called 'Horses, People & Fun', was written by Freda White and was published in 1976. This book has been lent to me by our friend Larry Stratton, an NZer who has lived in Europe for more than 2o years. Freda White, apparently, lived close to where Larry grew up in Manawatu in New Zealand and his family knew her well, although when Larry was growing up his father would not let him go round to Freda's property because she used to swear so much that he didn't want his son to hear her language! Born in 1909, Freda seems to have been an outstanding horsewoman, and her memoirs mostly centre around her experiences of racing/showing/jumping horses over several decades. She seems to have been a sort of Kiwi version of someone like that wonderful character Mita Easton or the woman (whose name I have unforgivably forgotten) who had dear old Mac Vidi, who was placed in the Gold Cup at the age of something like 15 - which probably is quite a good parallel, as Freda White had a horse called Teak who won the 1974 Hawke's Bay Steeplechase at the age of 15. It is a lovely book, all the more special for providing a snapshot of an era which has sadly gone forever. In particular, her recollections of travelling around the country with her horses by train are fascinating, with the trains taking several days to complete the journey, chugging along and picking up horses, sheep and cattle from all the most out-of-the-way places at all times of the day and night so that all the competitors could go to a particular show. The book is also an interesting lesson in that one does not have to use the English language correctly to use it well: few books can have been written more incorrectly than this one without winning a Booker Prize, as the author just wrote things down as she would have said them - and the result at times is magic. There is one particular example which sticks in my mind. She tells the story of a mare called Smoulder, and she sums up the mare's life better and more poignantly with one paragraph and one photograph than one could have done in a whole chapter. She bred Smoulder from her mare Light, whom she trained to win on the Flat and over jumps, as well as winning five point-to-points on her. Anyway, the photograph's caption says it all: "Smoulder (P. Whiteman) leads the field in the Capital Steeples at Trentham, 1968". The mare is indeed putting in a magnificent jump, with ears pricked, in the photograph. Here is the paragraph about her:-
"Smoulder (Midge), her first beautiful foal by Faux Tirage, who gave me all the thrills in the world, racing and showing. Poor old Midgie, in her last steeplechase before she was to go to the stud was as usual out in front just flowing over them and broke her leg a stride after landing over Cutts's and nearly broke my heart. She once took nine seconds off the two and a half miles Steeplechase time at Trentham, being caught on the post by a head through the winner coming over on her. That's one record her name should be beside."
You can probably understand why, with 111 pages of words such as those spoken from the heart and of really interesting photographs, I have enjoyed reading this book so much. And also why Paul Nolan's father has summed the sport up so well. Let us hope that there is not too much tragedy in amongst the triumphs at Cheltenham.
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