(Second) best in show

We're in a busy period because we've just had a couple of runners (Anis at Goodwood on Thursday and Ex Con at Aintree on Friday) and today we have commenced a week which might see us having runners on five of the seven days: Keep Silent at Windsor tomorrow, First Pressing at Bath on Wednesday, Batgirl at Newmarket on Thursday, Silken Thoughts at Newbury on Friday and Hotfoot at Newmarket on Saturday. And then we look like starting next week in similar vein, as Christy Ring will be entered for the bumpers at Stratford and Market Rasen a week today. So that's good: the point of training these horses is, after all, to run them! Mind you, if I think that we're having a busy time, it seems pertinent to observe that, when looking something up on the Racing Post website today, I happened to notice that David Evans sent out 51 runners in the first eight days of May. That's busy indeed. Of the runners we have so far had in the current sequence, Anis (pictured before the race) was again towards the rear at Goodwood, but that shouldn't be held against her: as a bumper winner, she can be expected to be far better suited by staying handicaps than by the middle-distance maidens she is obliged to be contesting at present, and she does appear in good order. Our runner the following day, Ex Con, performed with considerably more distinction, finishing a close fourth in a very competitive handicap hurdle at Aintree, just before dusk at 8.40 pm. He's a lovely horse (pictured before and then after his race) with a superb temperament, and as pleasurable as watching him run very well was seeing him after the race: clearly tired but, equally clearly, very, very happy in his work. And just before I move on from our most recent runners, it is possibly worth mentioning what a pleasure it was to be racing horses on the lovely surfaces which Goodwood and Aintree each produced for their meetings last week. Good on 'em.

But, while all these runners rightly occupy the focus of my attention at present, I cannot let today's chapter end without gleefully detailing our day today at the dog show at the British Racing School, an event organised by Sue Willows in aid of the Camilla Milbank Fund (which aims to help Camilla to cope with some of the large expense resultant from her paralysing fall on the Heath last July). Our two greyhounds, Stan and Bean, are lovely dogs, but prior to today I hadn't regarded them as being of show-ring standard. However, as there was a 'trainer's dog' class, it seemed only natural that I should take one of them into the class - and the decision over which to take was an easy one for me, Stan clearly being (and acting as) Emma's dog, while Bean is (and regards herself as) our dog. So Bean and I found ourselves in the show-ring, one of six entrants in the class. I was actually thinking that I'd ended up on the second string, because Newmarket's newest trainer Toby Coles - seen here recently outside his barn in Rae Guest's Chestnut Tree (formerly Marriott) Stables in Hamilton Road - had been press-ganged into taking Stan into the class; and I'd always, prior to today, regarded Stan as the more imposing (and less unsound) specimen. Anyway, the first shock of the day came when the result was announced: Bean was the winner, just edging out Luca Cumani and his dog. I don't know quite how Toby managed to get Stan to perform so badly, but he ended up in last place, behind even Micky Quinn's little dog who had refused to move when asked for an individual display and had had to be dragged along behind Micky and Karen's little girl. As the judge declared that the reason why Luca and I had filled the first two places was because we had the best control over our dogs, it makes you wonder just how off the rails Stan had gone under Toby's guidance!

If I was happy with Bean's victory - and happy I definitely was, sporting a grin as wide as the Nullarbor on collecting the red rosette from the class' sponsors, Kieren Fallon and Kirsty Milczarek - I was on even better terms with myself later in the day. There were about 25 classes, the winners of all of which were eligible to take part in the closing 'Best In Show' class. I didn't really see the point in taking Bean in this, because she had, after all, just scraped home in the least competitive qualifier. However, I thought that I might as well take her in the ring just for the sake of showing the right spirit, and so did so in neither hope nor expectation - so imagine my shock when Bean was called in second, "Reserve Best In Show", with a massive rosette (seen on her, along with her red winner's rosette) and little cup to prove it! What a star! Let's hope that that splendid result sets the tone for our week's competition.