Planning ahead

Still cold, still snow-covered. No new snow has fallen, but what we've had since Saturday is going nowhere fast. Especially on days such as today when we don't see any sunshine. But it's been a pleasant, straightforward day nonetheless. We had Gina Bryce here again this morning, which was nice. As you may possibly know, Gina is preparing to ride in the Charity Race at the Cheltenham Festival, in which she is due to partner the David Pipe-trained mare On Khee. She's coming here as often as her ATR broadcasting commitments permit, which usually means two or three mornings a week. I try to keep her busy when she's here, as that's why she comes: from the points of view both of fitness and of practice, the more riding she can do between now and the middle of March, the better. So she was here for two lots today and galloped both times, riding Frankie (first photograph) up the Al Bahathri with Dr Darcey and Karma Chameleon and then riding Oscar (Bernadotte) up the same strip with Ruby and Sail Past. Frankie's very straightforward but Oscar (on whom she is pictured in the second photograph, returning last week from a gallop along the Cambridge Road AW) is greener, which isn't a bad thing from her point of view as riding a horse who needs a bit of help is probably more beneficial. Anyway, that's all going well. You might have seen a snippet on the subject on Jason Weaver's and Luke Harvey's 'Get In' show on ATR last Friday evening. Jason had been here filming Gina the previous morning (pictured with the crew in the yard) before going on to film her having some tuition from Richard Perham on the equicizer at the Racing School. Basically, Gina's doing very well and it's a pleasure having her here. We'll all be very excited to see how she gets on in the race - and I'm sure that, if On Khee proves to be the best horse in the race, she'll win it, because Gina won't let her down.

Jason's visit was merely one of two excitements last Thursday. The other was Tattersalls' February Sale. I was involved as both consignor and purchaser - simultaneously, in one case - and that's two nerve-wracking things; but I hope that all has worked out for the best. Time will tell. Anyway, to put it in a nutshell, we were selling Gift Of Silence on behalf of Henry Moskowicz. She's a nice, leggy, immature, unraced three-year-old. I'd always given Henry positive reports about her last season, which was justified as her work was always good. However, we ended up not running her as she just started to find things a bit too much of a strain, simply through immaturity. So she has been given plenty of time to mature in an unpressured way. Unfortunately for Henry, he found himself in a position where it seemed best to sell his racing stock. This was unfortunate both because he was obliged to sell what I think (and had told him) is a nice filly, and also because he was doing so at a time (ie when she was older than two but still unraced) when her value was clearly going to be minimal. It might seem slightly odd my buying her, but I look at it the other way: having consistently given Henry positive reports of the filly, I think it would have been very odd indeed if I HADN'T wanted to buy her. The only pity was that, unsurprisingly, she attracted no interest, so the bid which I made for her was the only one, hence my buying her at an embarrassingly low price. Still, there's a lot more to being a good horse than showing speed in one's early gallops as an unraced two-year-old, and she comes with no guarantee, so it could be that I've just bought a horse who is going to do nothing but cost me money. As ever, time will tell (eventually, as I'm certainly not in any hurry with her and haven't put her back into training yet) - but as of now I'm certainly not unhappy to be the proud owner of a grey daughter of one of my all-time favourite stallions, Cadeaux Genereux. There are two pictures of her in this paragraph, one taken last autumn (walking towards the stalls behind Zarosa for some practice in them) and one taken last week. I think that they probably explain why I'm in no hurry.

Other interest from the sale revolved around the other arrival from it: Simayil. She's rather speculative, but I hope that will prove to have been a good buy. She's been trained by Clive Brittain, for whom she's been running well: she's run four times over the autumn/winter and has run to a Postmark over 80 each time, including when winning over 10 furlongs at Lingfield before Christmas. She's a four-year-old now, but is still very lightly-raced and not particularly mature-looking (pictured), so I hope that she has scope for further improvement. Physically and mentally she seems a tough, hardy horse (if you notice, by the way, a lump on her knee, don't worry as that's just a superficial wound from when she apparently fell over a couple of weeks before the sale, and which is healing well) which is probably the main thing, so we'll just have to see whether she can indeed continue to progress. She's a winner by a very popular stallion (Oasis Dream) so, fingers crossed, ought to hold her value well enough anyway; and if she can better her achievements, so much the better. Again, time will tell - and, again, it will tell slowly, because again I'm in no hurry. She's been working hard enough in the recent past, so I'm not going to ask her to do too much in the immediate future. It's just nice to have her, and I'm looking forward to her becoming part of the furniture here. I'm sure that she'll enjoy fitting in nicely.