Blue sky sulking

It's been a relatively quiet Saturday, but there's no harm in that. I was thinking just now that you know that you're getting old (and over-worked) when you're sitting alone at the dining room table at 7.30 on a Saturday night working through the accounts, but there you go. So I might as well follow that social highlight up with a brief chapter here. Anyway, this morning was glorious: a slight frost, but when the sun got up, it found itself getting up into a cloudless sky. It soon warmed up - but then mid-morning saw clouds materializing, which wasn't so nice as it kept it cold. Still, we've certainly moved on seemingly months in the past fortnight, bearing in mind that it's only two weeks since the temperature got down to minus 16. Which is all the more remarkable bearing in mind that I note that on Thursday afternoon we hit a high of 18. Amazing, isn't it: minus 16 to plus 18 within 12 days? Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the best time of the day, which was between 9.00 and 10.00. The Flat seen beyond the Cambridge Road AW, as viewed between Ruby's ears; and then Karma Chameleon and Ethics Girl having a pick, courtesy of Terri and Hugh, after their exercise; a pick of something which, if this lovely spring-like weather keeps up, will soon be grass. It's good to get a photo of Ethics in as her corpulence is a constant source of bewilderment and amusement. She's such a little porker that she always looks very round, but it doesn't mean that she's fat: she must just have big (albeit short) bones. And, anyway, I was very pleased to have my first viewing of Frankel of the year when I got to the top of Long Hill AW on Thursday morning (which itself was good as Kadouchski had gone up there so relaxedly that I knew that he was ready to run very well) and I was amused/taken aback to see that the best horse/second best horse (delete as applicable) in the world is currently even fatter than she is. So that's good.

Anyway, just a couple of observations from today's racing. Firstly, the salutations go to the connections of Junoob. This is the Haafhd horse with whom Amy Weaver did so well, buying him for 3,500 out of John Dunlop's stable in October, winning two claimers with him and then having him claimed for something like 12,000 only six weeks after his arrival. Her association with him was clearly a profitable one, but it turns out that I was wrong to have asserted at the time that she had got the best of both parts of the transaction: owner Alan Solomons and trainer Tom Dascombe are to be congratulated on his impressive Listed victory at Lingfield Park today, having clearly bought extremely well (just as Amy had done). On a less congratulatory note, I feel that it's worth remarking on the Racing Post's childishness. As we know, the day's main meeting always occupies the centre spread of the Post. Well, nearly always: today we had Newcastle (total prize money 84,000, no Graded or Listed races on the programme) taking prime position with Kempton (total prize money 189,000, three Grade Two races and one Grade Three whose total prize was worth more than the entire card at Newcastle) relegated to one of the lesser slots. Was this an unintentional oversight? Well, I suspect that it was deliberate. You see, today was for 20 years or more Racing Post Chase Day at Kempton. This year it seems that the Racing Post had decided no longer to sponsor the feature race - and, it transpires, the paper's new rival, Racing Plus, stepped into the breach to sponsor the feature race (which you'd hardly know existed now, from the lack of coverage which it received through the week in the Post) plus the Grade Two Pendil Novices' Chase, plus a handicap hurdle. This, surely, must have been the catalyst for the Post's bizarre layout today. If so, whoever within the paper's hierarchy decided upon this petty move deserves a good kick up the bum - or at least to be put in the same category of pettiness as Huntingdon's food-and-beverages-consumption commissar. The Post clearly feels that Racing Plus is competition - but the correct way to react to competition is to act professionally and with dignity, carry on doing what you are doing and, if possible, raise your game. It is not to act in this sulky manner. Kempton, its sponsors and the Racing Post's readership deserved better than to have such an excellent meeting denigrated by racing's principal newspaper. Oh, and by the way, once I realised what the Post was up to, I went back into town and bought a Racing Plus. It's a good paper and it includes editorial by both James Willoughby and Nick Luck, which really means that it has become obligatory Saturday reading henceforth.