Easter

The highlight of Easter in these parts has been the fact that we've had Anthony staying with us. He can, of course, be quite a hard task-master, and he does like keeping us up to the mark: in particular, he does like to spend quite a lot of time giving Hugh hints on how to make things run smoothly in the stable, as this photograph shows. I found myself under similar pressure from him on Saturday afternoon, when we had decided to cycle over to the other side of the Heath and visit our friends Colin and Eileen Casey, and also Paddy and Nan Broderick. Anthony fetched his bicycle, but when I went along to the shed I found that mine had a flat back tyre, which obviously needed to be pumped up before I set off. A couple of minutes later, therefore, I emerged, ready for action, to be greeted by the sight of a stony-faced boy leaning over his handle bars asking in a very unamused fashion, "How long does it take to fetch a bicycle out of a little shed?". He's a dear little boy, but I wouldn't want to work for him! Anyway, he seemd very happy with things in general (not least with the smooth running of his Easter Egg hunt, for him and his friends, in the yard on Friday afternoon) and even managed not to find too much fault with how the horses were going. There is a horse here who was reared, broken and pre-trained by his mother, so naturally he had to bring her out to cast his eye over her (pictured) - and I think that even she passed muster, so we must be doing OK!

Otherwise, there's been some interesting racing to enjoy. A highlight for this property was the debut of a third of Dave Morris' string at Yarmouth this afternoon. Dave has just the three horses in work at present, of which two (Cragganmore Creek and Sleep Over) have been racing over the winter. The third is Cragganmore Creek's hitherto unraced four-year-old Lujain half-brother (pictured cantering up Warren Hill under his trainer a couple of weeks ago) who rejoices under the unlikely name of Chez Vronny. There is a theory in racing which says that a good horse will not have a bad name and unfortunately it would be hard to be confident from Chez Vronny's debut this afternoon that he is ever going to be up to disproving this maxim. However, he showed a glimmer of ability, travelling well for two thirds of the race before weakening badly over the final 400m, and I am suspect that in the fullness of time Dave, a very good trainer, will be able to find a winning opportunity somewhere for him.

Other than that, some of the more interesting racing this weekend took place, you may be surprised to hear me say, in the Czech Republic. We have a very good team of riders here at present. Of the full-time staff, Hugh and Steph (pictured last week on Rhythm Stick and Silken Thoughts) are both extremely sound both in and out of the saddle, while Rodney (pictured, below, recently on Ben Bhraggie) is a very experienced rider, having apparently ridden several hundred winners in India in his younger days, mainly in Bangalore. We've got the Angels, of course. (Well, we will as of Wednesday have both Angels again, Aisling having been in Dubai for the winter, but she and Gemma will be a regular team in the mornings - much, presumably, to James Fanshawe's delight - once again from Wednesday onwards, which will be great). Furthermore Adam, a long-time friend who rode successfully as an apprentice for Neville Callaghan before he and I worked together in Luca Cumani's stable in the late '80s, is kind enough to come in to help us out for the odd lot in between his main role overseeing his three lovely sons. On top of all those, we also now have the valuable daily assistance of Iva Milickova, a jockey from the Czech Republic - and thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to watch her rides in Prague yesterday afternoon. She has ridden over a hundred winners in her homeland, but only rides there occasionally nowadays as she lives in Newmarket now. She has been working for Michael Jarvis (and is pictured here on one of his horses) but will shortly be moving to work for Jane Chapple-Hyam, for whom she had a few race-rides last autumn. That is likely to be a sensible move: for obvious reasons, the race-riding prospects of any female jockey in a stable in which the vast majority of the horses are Arab-owned (as is the case in Michael Jarvis' stable) are inevitably going to be very bleak. Hopefully she will still be able to fit in a daily lot here around her work in Jane's stable, which would be very good news as she is a big asset and perfectly complements what is currently a very good team all round.

In the immediate future, I have another At The Races International Review show slot to look forward to tomorrow. It was, of course, Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill on Saturday, so there will be plenty to talk about. Over and above enthusing about Crystal Lily's excellent win in the Slipper, I am sure that I will get verbal diarrhea eulogising over the wonderful Shamardal filly Faint Perfume and the superstar mare Typhoon Tracy, so that, as always when I am working on ATR, will be something for me (if no one else!) to enjoy.