As one door closes ...

I'm going particularly to enjoy watching Cheltenham on TV tomorrow. Not only will be we be able to watch the British debut of Baby Mix, a half-brother to three horses who have won for this stable (Kadouchski, Douchkette and Douchkirk), but we shall also be able to watch William riding in the big race, the one which will be called (for one year only, one assumes) the Spinal Research The Atlantic 4 Gold Cup and which is unlikely ever again to be called the name by which I still think of it, the Massey-Ferguson Gold Cup. We have observed William's loss of the ride on Time For Rupert, but it seems to be a fact of the ying-and-yang nature of life that, as one door closes, another one opens. This is a classic example. I'd mentioned how William appears to be regarded as the substitute of choice for JP McManus when AP McCoy is unavailable; well, that's what's happening tomorrow. JP has three runners in the race. Obviously AP can only ride one of them, so William has been called up for Finger Onthe Pulse, his first ride for the Irish stable of Tom Taafe. That's grand. Common sense says that AP is likely to have chosen the correct one of the trio, bearing in mind that he would looked elsewhere had there been any doubt, with Sunnyhill Boy having the lightest weight of the trio (10 stone 4lb); but Finger Onthe Pulse won two starts ago, and is clearly a good big-race ride to have. So that's grand. William was here this morning, schooling Douchkirk, Asterisk and Alcalde over hurdles and Kadouchski over fences, which was great. (We have two photographs of Frankie/Douchkirk and Kadouchski returning home, ridden by Sara and William, and then one of Asterisk, ridden by Jamie, which also includes the top of Alcalde's head). It was a cold morning - mind you, it will be even colder at dawn tomorrow, with the temperature being forecast to dip tonight to minus 3 - but a good one: all jumped well, so we came home happy. As, I hope, did all the other people who were schooling up there: it was a busy morning, with Don Cantillon, Alan Bailey, Lucy Wadham and Sara Humphrey all having horses schooling while we were up there. Leighton Aspell, Gerard Tumelty, Trevor Whelan and Mark Marris were among the riders, while I was very impressed to see the born-again lightweight Flat jockey Dominic Fox schooling over hurdles alongside Gerard Tumelty in Alan Bailey's string (pictured, with Gerard in the dark blue and Dominic in the red cap).

So that was good - as was the second half of the morning, the highlight of which was the fact that my pride and joy Roy, my yearling, was ridden for the first time. Hugh has done more of the ground work with him than I have, and Hannah is the rider, so I can't claim to have had much input in Roy's breaking - which is a pity because I'd like to claim the credit, as it seems to have gone very well. He's been straightforward, even if it did take him several sessions of long-reining to get to the stage where he was no longer really spooked by all the hustle and bustle of all the other horses going about their business on the Severals. Anyway, Hugh had had him out and he had again shown that he's getting pretty grown up, so while Terri was out on Ex Con on her own during the final lot, we put Hannah up on him for the first time. That went very well: he was a little bit spooked for the first minute or so by the unaccustomed feeling of having someone on his back, but he soon learned not to be afraid, gaining the confidence to relax, stretch his head out and go forwards in an unflustered and relaxed manner. It was great. Hannah rode him around the yard for a while, supervised by Gus of course, and then we went for a wander down Exeter Road. I'd hoped that we might have timed it right, and it turned out that we had: when we got to the bottom of the street, Terri and Ex Con appeared around the corner, so they turned around (which was a bit like turning the Titanic, Ex Con being so big) and headed off for a walk along the Watercourse as far as the Astley Club and back, just to give Roy a bit of company. All went really well - which is just as well as, of course, we found Gus waiting to check up on how things had gone when we returned to the yard. So that was lovely. You'd think from the way I'm going on that we'd never broken a horse previously, which of course if far from the case. However, while all horses in the yard are special, there's something rather magical about having a horse of whom one is breeder and owner as well as trainer, so please bear with me if you hear more than you'd like of Roy as he progresses through life. And today was a big milestone for him; and a milestone which, thanks to Hugh and Hannah, was passed very smoothly.

So that's been today. Tomorrow should have seen us heading to Southwell with Dr Darcey's mini-me (Karma Chameleon) but unfortunately he's not quite right to go. He should be fine to head to Kempton on Thursday, though, so, fingers crossed, we'll only have to wait another five days before our next outing.