Silence is golden

The lion has definitely returned. Yesterday actually turned into rather a pleasant afternoon, after what had been a cold and grey morning. However, today was not good. Although it was only very light rain until late morning, it started raining around 8.00 this morning and is still raining now, 12 hours later. It wasn't bad at all through morning stables and then when we took the dogs for a walk along the July Course side of the Devil's Dyke afterwards, but things deteriorated markedly from lunchtime onwards. The only 'break' in the rain, if one can call it a break, was when the rain, very surprisingly, turned to snow for an hour or so shortly before dusk. That really wasn't great: Sunday evening stables are never much fun at the best of times, and those conditions meant that today really wasn't the best of times. Still, one can't really complain, as it hasn't been a bad weekend. The highlight of yesterday morning came when Hannah and I galloped two unraced horses (Sail Past and Ruby In The Dust) with two unraced horses trained by one of Newmarket's most brahmatic trainers, Toby Coles. Toby (pictured here, in the tweed cap, on the Severals on Friday morning on the Severals with another good promising young trainer, Hugo Palmer) is an excellent man, a real horseman and a very hard worker too. He's also a real character, and any time spent in his company is never dull. Heading off down to the Al Bahathri with the Coles string was, therefore, a recipe for an entertaining lot, and so it proved. And the horses worked nicely as well, so that was the icing on the cake. The two pairs of horses made rather an interesting contrast: Toby's turnout is as immaculate as mine is unforced, while Toby's experimentation with tack is as varied as mine is minimalist. Still, it would be a dull world if we all thought the same!

One of the other highlights of the weekend was watching yesterday evening's episode of 'Luck'. I'm really enjoying this series. I suppose the one drawback is that most of the dialogue is unintelligible, which makes the already-complicated plot even harder to follow than it would be if one knew what the characters were saying. And that's saying something. However, one can usually work out roughly what is going on, and it's just a pleasure to watch. I just enjoy so many things about it. The two trainers are both excellent characters, as is Dustin Hoffman - I just watch him, see Benjamin Braddock fifty years on and think, "How did that innocent young man end up in this mire of crime?". Arguably my favourite character, though, is the jockey's agent, who has charge of the brain-dead bug-boy who nearly gets himself killed in every episode. I always have a little chuckle each time that the agent tries (and fails) to make the young idiot understand the importance of keeping one's mouth shut. The fact that loose lips sink ships is so generally forgotten nowadays that I'm still marvelling at the control which Paul Nicholls has over his staff. In a stable of 200+ horses, there must be at least 70 staff - so for not one word about Kauto Star's woes to have got out for a full six days after the horse's fall is truly remarkable, bearing in mind that all but the most stupid must have known that something had happened. The real hero was Clifford Baker, who must have found it very difficult indeed, bearing in mind that he rides the horse every day, at the Godolphin Stud & Stable Staff Awards. It is fair to assume that everyone who interviewed or spoke to him that day would have asked him how the horse's Gold Cup preparation was going; so it must have been a minor miracle for him to have managed to avoid mentioning that the horse had had a heavy fall schooling three days previously and that - short of the horse having bowed a tendon, broken a leg or died - it could hardly have been going worse. Even Sir Humphrey Appleby would have been proud of that level of diplomacy - and for that magnificent piece of virtuoso discretion alone, Clifford showed just what a worthy recipient he was.

Back to the future, now, and we have only one entry this week: Karma Chameleon (pictured this morning under Gemma) is in at Wolverhampton on Thursday. I'd like to think that he will go there still in very good form, so let's hope that he can make us proud yet again.