Guineas weekend

Notwithstanding the absence of runners, last week was very busy; and this one promises to be very busy too.  This week we look like having Kadouchski running at Kempton on Monday (ie tomorrow), Asterisk at Fakenham on Tuesday, Silken Thoughts at Goodwood on Thursday and Batgirl at Yarmouth the same day, and then, if the ground dries up, Orla's Rainbow at Warwick (whose meeting tomorrow has been abandoned, which isn't a good sign for the fixture five days later) on Saturday.  We had several horses entered and declared last week, but the weather - which earlier this week filled the Watercourse fuller than I've ever seen it (pictured), and full enough for it to make the adjacent horsewalk down to the Fordham Road yards unusable - put paid to our plans.

Leicester on Thursday saw three being declared, but that was scuppered by waterlogging - which freed me up to take part in the Heath Run in the evening.  This basically goes around Long Hill and Bury Hill (reverse way) and is supposed to be six kilometres, although I'd say that it can't be more than three and a half miles.  The first mile is uphill but it isn't too bad after that, although if one has done no training for it whatsover and if one is the wrong side of 40, then it's tough enough.  The past couple of years I'd got out of it by having runners at Goodwood (Anis Etoile in 2010 and Kadouchski last year) and I would have been OK this year but for Leicester's abandonment; but as my excuses had been washed away, I felt that I ought to take part.  And I'm pleased that I did.  I can't say that I enjoyed it, but I enjoy having done it, particularly as I finished no worse than midfield and particularly as I was the first trainer across the line.  The first of only three, mind - and that was only because Toby Coles, who would have beaten me by a distance, went amiss three quarters of a mile from home, and still only finished about a minute behind me.  And the third trainer also had an excuse: Amy Weaver ran around the course filming the event with her camcorder, which would have slowed her down considerably.  Still, I was happy enough with my time of 25 minutes and 40 seconds, which isn't a great time for the distance, but which might have been quicker but for the heavy ground (you can see the slop on part of the route pictured from Kadouchski's back a couple of days previously - and there would have been another inch of pre-race rain on it after the picture was taken).

This terrible weather really makes the job harder.  Our routine here relies on the horses spending quite a lot of time outdoors, and the problem at the moment is that the field is as deep as I've ever seen it, and just about unusable for a lot of the horses.  It's so easy for them to pull shoes off in deep going, whether it be in the field or on the Heath.  On Thursday morning we had two horses pull shoes off while cantering on the all-weathers on the Heath (one on Long Hill and one on Bury Hill) and we've been getting a lot of muscle problems in horses backs too, simply from the very deep ground in which they've been exercising.  That makes life more complicated - and if they can't spend part of the time recovering from that mooching around in the field, then it's more complicated still.  Still, Kadouchski's fine (pictured being checked over by Carol on Friday) so he'll head off to Kempton tomorrow.

Fingers crossed Silken Thoughts is in great shape too.  She's pencilled in for Goodwood on Thursday, seeming to have taken her race at Sandown very well.  She did her bit for Anglo-French relations yesterday as part of her preparation for Goodwood.  A very good French jockey, Gregory Benoist, was due to ride Hermival in the 2,000 Guineas.  He'd never ridden at Newmarket previously, so it was felt that it would be good for him to become acquainted with the course's contours.

Unfortunately the clerk of the course Michael Prosser felt unable to allow him to work a horse on the course in the morning (which struck me as unnecessarily protective, but there you are) so we did the next best thing, having him work Silken Thoughts (pictured above walking across to the gallop's start, with some rare blue appearing temporarily in the sky) 'Across the Flat', ie on the gallop which runs adjacent to the Rowley Mile.  Hugh had taken her over there for him, and I enjoyed leading him on Ethics Girl.  All went well and, all in all, it was a lovely way to start 2,000 Guineas Day.  And we had the perfect post script too: Hermival (pictured in the parade ring) obviously couldn't win the race with the mighty Camelot being in the field, but he ran a cracking race, finishing an excellent third.  Let's hope that our forthcoming runners can acquit themselves similarly creditably.