Today's more like it

This is much more like it.  After all the rain and rain, we have a warm, sunny and DRY day.  We even have a stiff warm breeze, which should do some sterling work towards drying the ground.  The catch, of course, is that we probably only have one such day because tomorrow's forecast is for more rain, and probably quite a lot of it too.  But today is perfect.  And, as it's the last day of April, we can now end the month by saying that it has truly contained both sunshine and showers, the first part of that pairing being notable by its absence for pretty much all of the month.  Anyway, this first photograph of Batgirl, Silken Thoughts and Zarosa striding outward-bound across the Severals at around 8.45 shows just what a pleasure it was to be alive this spring morning.

The race-meetings are still falling like nine-pins, of course.  We should have been heading down to Windsor this evening with Grand Liaison, but that has gone by the board, as has this afternoon's fixture at Towcester.  Just to recap, last Tuesday we lost Folkestone, Newcastle and Newton Abbot, followed by Hereford on the Wednesday, Beverley and Uttoxeter on the Thursday, Chepstow on the Friday, and Leicester on the Saturday.  This week we have lost Wetherby yesterday (Sunday), and Towcester and Windsor today.  We've already lost Ascot on Wednesday and Folkestone on Thursday, with tomorrow's fixture at Exeter being dependent on an inspection tomorrow morning, as is Thursday's fixture at Leicester (where we are hoping to run three). 

So, while today's weather is lovely, it's really too little, too late for many courses, especially with conditions set to deteriorate again tomorrow, and I'd imagine that many racecourses will look like the view out of our back door today, with Alamshar revelling in the sun (above), something which she wouldn't be doing at ground level because, as you can see, she'd be too busy getting wet, as the field is flooded.  But never mind the mud - let's just enjoy this one day of sunshine.  Admittedly more clouds have been appearing this afternoon, but for much of the morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Spirits were high all around and the views were lovely.  When I was up at the lunge ring on the Heath with Simayill at the end of the morning, I was very pleased to see Chris Dwyer's pair of admirable horses Patriotic (who won yet again last week) and Mia's Boy come past, ridden by Chris and Shelley respectively (pictured).

So salutations to their team again - and salutations to all those connected with the Neil King-trained Highlands National winner Cerium, previously best known for running fifth at 100/1 behind Mon Mome in the 2009 Grand National, but now a National winner himself, courtesy of his mighty win on really testing ground on Friday.  The horse's most recent previous success had come in a Grade Two steeplechase at Ascot in November 2006 (when trained by Paul Nicholls) so it was a mighty feat by Neil King not just to get him back to the winner's enclosure, but to get him back there after a feature race. 

Top plaudits  must go to Neil's conditional jockey Trevor Whelan who gave the horse a great ride.  He was nearly unshipped at the last, but did well to get himself back on an even keel; and, had he been unshipped, it would have been a terrible injustice, as he had given the horse a faultless ride all the way round.  I hope that this victory might have given his career a boost, because he is certainly a young jockey who deserves to succeed.  Trevor is pictured here last August on one of Neil's horses, not long after he had come up to Newmarket from George Baker's yard, at the bottom of Warren Hill, following Neil's other jockey Alex Merriam.

The second picture of him was taken at Huntingdon last October: he's riding the Toby Coles-trained Dear Maurice just in front of A P McCoy on a J P McManus-owned horse.  Mention of Toby reminds me that he's done well to have already sent out a two-year-old winner this season, having won at Brighton on Thursday with a Red Clubs debutant.  He had had an unsuccessful trip to Germany for a Group Three race with Lycidas (on whom he is pictured riding out of the dawn on the Severals earlier this month) the previous weekend, but put that disappointment behind him in good style with this two-year-old's victory.  Good on 'im.