Slight sign of spring

Rather surprisingly, today ended up with an almost spring-like feel to it, even if it would be overstating things to describe it as sunny. But we're clearly going in the right direction once more, and the forecast is for tomorrow to be very pleasant. The conditions were appropriate as we gave ourselves a real spring-like event: the six horses (Ethics Girl, Silken Thoughts, Batgirl, Wasabi, Grand Liaison and Zarosa) who were spelling in the first half of the winter, and who have spent the early weeks of this year going through the early stages of a return to fitness, all had their first gallop of the year. They did it together, which was rather fun, with six of us scampering up the grass on Railway Land in a bunch. As it's still early days, it was far from a searching gallop, but it was just good to get them started going a bit faster. All the horses are still more than a month away from being fit enough to resume, but it was a big step in the right direction anyway. And I can say that they all worked well, even if only because we didn't ask them to do enough to give them the opportunity of disappointing us! You can see us (Ethics Girls' ears, and then Grand Liaison, Wasabi, Batgirl, Zarosa and Silken Thoughts ahead of her) filing off the canter at the bottom of the field, preparatory to turning around and galloping back up again. Great minds were obviously thinking alike, because as we rode away from the field after galloping, we passed a few strings heading towards it, including a much larger string of John Gosden-trained gallopers (pictured), although I suspect that they were heading for the Al Bahathri rather than the grass. So that was good - as was the next lot, where Gina, having galloped Grand Liaison, put the finishing touches to her Cheltenham Festival preparation by cantering Dr Darcey up Long Hill (pictured). Gina seems pretty fit now and she's riding well, so let's hope that she can enjoy a really good ride on On Khee in the charity race on Thursday.