Character-building

Hard to know who had the more frustrating day.  Hannah went up to Newcastle (250 miles from Newmarket) to ride Hydrant for Peter Salmon.  It was good news for her that it was raining up there because Hydrant loves the wet.  He looked to have a very good chance in the 4.30 -  but, of course, the track copped a freak 30mm of rain in 15 minutes and, although the first four races were run and then the horses for the 4.00 went to post, those horses returned without racing and the rest of the meeting was abandoned.  That would have been hard for her to swallow - but Yarmouth too proved a character-building exercise for those of us who had gone there, as Silken Thoughts finished second in a race which she arguably should have won.  As at Windsor ten days ago with Grand Liaison, our runner got farther back than I'd have liked and flew home to be an arguably-unlucky place-getter (second in this instance).  Still, one can never be unhappy when the horses run well - and, as I reflected during Royal Ascot, when you see horses flashing home from an unpromising position to be narrowly beaten (eg Sentaril in the Jersey Stakes) in Group races, one can't feel too sorry for oneself when it happens to one in a handicap at a minor meeting.  Life goes on.  And it goes on with the compensation that Silken's defeat meant that the race was won by connections whom I'm always pleased to see in the winner's enclosure: the race went to the enterprisingly-ridden Laverre, trained by Lucy Wadham for the Anthony and Victoria Pakenham of Sir Percy fame.

On a more positive note, the weather has been great here.  They might have had a tropical monsoon in Geordieland, it might have been extremely wet in most other places in the north, Leicester might have been abandoned waterlogged today (for the third time in a fortnight) and tomorrow evening's Newcastle fixture might already be off - but it was lovely in the south east.  It was shaping as a lovely day here when I left for Yarmouth; and, while it was merely pleasantly warm at Yarmouth with its sea breezes, when I got back here this evening it was clear that it had been a scorcher of a day, because even now at bed-time it is still extremely warm.  And on a different positive note, I was pleased a couple of days ago to note that a very good apprentice Toby Atkinson rode his first winner of the season at Brighton on the Mark Rimmer-trained Ooi Long, an example of an under-rated jockey winning for an under-rated trainer.  Toby is apprenticed to Marco Botti and is an excellent young rider, but his career seems rather becalmed at present - through, as far as I can see, absolutely no fault of his own, other than the fact that he went over to California to ride trackwork for Simon Callaghan for a few months over the winter, allowing himself to be forgotten.  He rode the grey Silver Linnet (pictured) at Yarmouth today for John Butler and it was, I think, only his sixth ride of the year.  Still, now that he has had a winner, he might find that a few people start to remember that he's still around.  I hope so, anyway.  If we found today character-building, how has Toby (who seems invariably to remain cheerful and positive) found the past three months?

Footnote - it has been pointed out to me that my previous assertion that I've never trained a winner at Windsor makes me look as if I'm going senile: one of the most special days I've ever had at the races came at Windsor when Brief Goodbye carried to victory the colours which Silken Thoughts bore today.  I may not be getting wiser, but I'm definitely getting older if I can forget things like that.

A day at the races

Gosh, I've only just recovered from the shock of Black Caviar's race.  I'm so pleased that I went down to Ascot that day as it's a race I won't ever forget.  Nor will anyone who saw it forget it.  And I'd be kicking myself if I hadn't been there.  We knew that it would be special, but I don't think that anyone knew how extraordinary it would be.  The tension was oppressive beforehand.  She simply had to win; and one didn't need to have too great an understanding of horses to realise that she's a mare for whom things could go wrong at any time.  The grim expressions on those around her, as well as her feisty look, said it all: it was like watching a team preparing their gladiator for battle.

And battle, of course, it was.  At her best she'd clearly just stroll alongside them for four furlongs and then saunter clear.  But every day horses who should be able to win, don't.  And that's when they are playing in their own country, in their own hemisphere, in their own climate, in their normal conditions and when they don't already have a hell of a lot of wear and tear on their bodies.  As Frankel is proving and as she has proved, it's easy enough for a horse who is a lot better than the others to keep showing up only when in peak condition and only when everything is in his/her favour, and keep winning easily.  That's grand, and champions should be much better than their opponents.

But true champions can battle too.  Ask them to race when everything is against them and they'll still win.  They'll win on class, sure, but they'll also win on pure courage.  I've never seen a sprinter so tired after the race as she was: she'd put her heart and soul into it to fall in by a head.  Granted, it should have been more than a head had not Luke Nolen's brain frozen in the last furlong, but even so she wouldn't have won by much even if he hadn't got things so badly wrong.  At first I thought that he'd mistaken the winning post, but on reflection I just think that he hadn't seen the two horses finishing fast on his left side.  He'd been drawn the widest runner and he probably wasn't expecting anything to come from even farther out than he was.  And he had the ones on his inside well covered.

Thank God she got him out of trouble because it really would have been very close to a tragedy (and I am aware that we should not use that word lightly) if he had got her beat.  It would have been a tragedy in the Greek sense, because poor Luke would have been a broken man.  Roy Higgins still hasn't been able to put the 1975 Moonee Valley Cup, when he dropped his hands on Hyperno and got beat, behind him.  I see that he's written that this will haunt Luke, but it only will to a certain degree thanks to the fact that he held on: nobody would be going on about Roy's blunder now had Hyperno won, which by the grace of God is what the lovely, the best and the bravest Black Caviar did.  And I'm so glad that I was there to see the victory.

In all of the excitement, it was almost possible to forget that the Melbourne Cup quinella were re-opposing yet again.  And once again they passed the post almost as one.  What two wonderfully consistent horses Dunaden (pictured in this paragraph) and Red Cadeaux are.  Dunaden is in my XII to Follow, so let's hope that he can get his head in front soon.  He ought to be able to do so as he's a cracking horse who is in great form and who has, I venture to suggest, still got improvement in him.  Even if Black Caviar hadn't been there, Saturday would still have been a great trip to the races simply because of having seen him.

We had the perfect post script to the afternoon at the races when we welcomed a few guests to our picnic in the car park afterwards.  Guest of honour was Peter Moody, who joined us with his friends after his car had, hard though this is to believe, broken down as they were about to leave.  A new car too.  It was good to see him unwind, the tension at last dissipating, the ordeal over, disaster avoided.  He's a tremendous man as well as a terrific trainer and it was lovely to share the evening with him.  Another Aussie trainer, albeit one who trains in the UK, Jeremy Gask, showed up, with a visiting South Australian trainer whom I used to know years ago, David Jolly, and there was further representation from the Aussie trainers with Peter's friend Brett Cavanough, who trains at Albury and who broke Black Caviar in.  And the Aussie hoops were represented by Kathy O'Hara, so it was a proper league of nations.  Which was great.

So now we have three more days at the races.  Yarmouth tomorrow with Silken Thoughts.  Newmarket Friday with Ethics Girl.  And probably Doncaster Saturday with Batgirl.  Hopefully they will all run well.  I suppose that Silken Thoughts will be the shortest price of the trio and probably Ethics Girl the longest.  But that doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Let's just hope for three good runs.  If the days are as enjoyable as Ascot was on Saturday, that'll be very good - and that's far from impossible because, of course, however good a day is when you don't have a runner, any day on which you have a runner has the potential to be even better.  Or even worse, depending on how things go.

Date for the diary

The really magnificent collection of clouds which accumulated into the hitherto blue sky during the day on Wednesday did indeed mark the end of our couple of days of sunny weather: today has been very wet again.  Still, it's supposed to settle down for Black Caviar Day tomorrow - and let's hope that all the rain which has fallen at Ascot over the past couple of days has not been enough to move Peter Moody to scratch her.  It would be very unfortunate if that were the case, but understandable.  After all, there have been plenty of other horses scratched because of the very wet conditions, and one doesn't want to take unnecessary chances with a horse's soundness, whatever the circumstances.

So the past couple of days have seen quite a lot of sheltering, whether one is a horse having a lie-down in one's stable (Wasabi) or a cat (Natagora) perched on the window surveying one's domain from the shelter of the eaves.  But summer will come soon.  It will surely have come by a date inked into my diary - 22nd August - when Paul Kelly will be playing in a pub in Cambridge.  I've bought my ticket already, so I won't forget that date.  I have, though, found that an arguably even more exciting occasion is in the offing, as I discovered on page 7 of this week's Newmarket Journal, under the headline, 'Women In Racing stages networking event'.

I quote: "A networking event promoting women working in the racing industry is to take place in Newmarket next month.  The Women in Racing group will stage the latest of its On Track discussions at the town's Rowley Mile Racecourse on Wednesday July 4.  On the panel will be town trainer Amy Weaver, Gemma Waterhouse, finance director at the British Racing School and Dawn Laidlow (sic), nomination manager for Darley.  Each of the panellists will talk about their roles in the industry and how they have made a successful career out of the sport.  Following the panel discussion will be a buffet supper.  The event is open to members and non-members of Women in Racing."  So that's really exciting - and as you don't have to be a member of Women in Racing, I will be able to buy a ticket.  For only eight quid more than it will cost to spend an evening of bliss listening to Paul Kelly.

You know how anything and everything nowadays is an 'Event' and has a Facebook page; well, this 'Event' will surely have one, so if you find it, don't forget to 'Like' it, as well as booking your tickets.  You'll have Gemma (pictured) to answer to if you don't - and that, as you can see, is quite a thought.  Furthermore, bearing in mind that the Facebook generation talks in abbreviations, you'll have a choice as to how you'll express your reaction to news of this 'Event'.  There will be some bowled over with excitement who will say "OMG"; there will be a few who find it rather a whacky idea and who will say "LOL"; and then the rest might say "WTF".

Hannah's great strike rate

Remarkably, we had some lovely weather on Tuesday and Wednesday (i.e. yesterday - as you can see from view of Silken Thoughts and Hugh which Ethics Girl and I enjoyed on the Limekilns at around 9 o'clock - and also from the great skyscape later in the morning, below, although I suppose the build-up of clouds over Long Hill might have suggested that blue skies were on the way out).  Inevitably, though, yet another area of low pressure seems to have arrived from the south west, so that it started raining here at around 6.30 a.m. today and we had yet another wet morning.  I think that Ascot had the worst of its rain a bit earlier than we had ours while farther north it was still raining harder through the afternoon.  Conditions looked really rough at Ripon this afternoon, where the horses and riders who got behind in the races seemed to come back in completely sodden and mud-covered.

That, though, would not have worried Hannah - who took her record for the current season to three wins from nine rides when making all the running to win the sprint on the Peter Salmon-trained 20/1 shot El McGlynn.  Hannah is doing really well and all her three winners this year have been outsiders.  Peter Salmon, a really nice man who trains near Wetherby and who used to be down here in Newmarket working for the Quinlans prior to heading back up north to start training, has proved a staunch supporter, so it's great that she has got such good results for him.  There has been some more great racing at Ascot, but from this point of view the 5.10 at Ripon provided the result of the day.

Visitors

Royal Ascot.  Two days down, three to go.  Frankel, of course, has been the star - although So You Think provided us with yet another special moment today.  And Frankel will remain the star right to the end of the Carnival, almost irrespective of whatever Black Caviar does.  It is almost inconceivable that she can post as impressive a victory as the one to the sight of which he treated us.  (Technically correct but unacceptably unwieldy clause at the end of that sentence, I'm afraid).  His win was surely the best win anywhere in the world this century, and arguably the best win since Secretariat's Belmont Stakes victory in 1973, although it might be wrong to overlook Shergar's Derby.  But, even leaving aside the stunning performance of Frankel, there have been some great runs by a few other horses whom I also enjoy seeing in the mornings.

King's Stand winner Little Bridge (pictured in the previous paragraph) can't really be termed a local horse, being trained in Hong Kong, but he's been in Clive Brittain's stable for around a month and we've seen a fair bit of him, mostly in the rain (which isn't as great a coincidence as it sounds, as it has rained on a disappointingly high proportion of the mornings of the past month).  I didn't watch him exercising on the press open morning last week, but I didn't feel that I missed out as I'd already seen plenty of him.  I rather fear, though, that nobody watched him at all, which would have been rather sad.  It's great that the press are given the opportunity to inspect the overseas raiders on a designated pre-Ascot open morning each year, and it's great to sneak along to it (on the perfectly justifiable pretext of being Winning Post's overseas correspondent) but one has to say that this year's press open morning, which was obviously dominated by Black Caviar (pictured) was a complete debacle.

Black Caviar goes out each morning some time before 5.00 and wanders around for a while.  There aren't many people at large at that time of day, so she has plenty of privacy to do her minute amount of work.  On the open morning, she duly went up the Al Bahathri extremely slowly at 5.00 (pictured) and then returned to her stable.  It wasn't a bright morning, so the snappers wouldn't have had great conditions to record her pacework for posterity - and then, to widespread consternation, they discovered that they were not allowed to photograph her in the stable because (hard though this is to believe) her owners had signed an exclusive-rights contract with Racing Victoria's TVN station, giving that channel sole access to her.  So that was part one of the cock-up, and the part from which her connections emerged with no credit.  However, things only got worse.

Unbelievably (bearing in mind that each stable only has one horse here and all day to work him) the two HK-trained gallopers, Joy And Fun (stabled, like Black Caviar in Abington Place) and Little Bridge (stabled in Carlburg), then worked at exactly the same time (5.50) on different parts of the Heath (the former up Long Hill, the former on the Al Bahathri).  I wasn't too fussed about having to miss one or the other, because I'd already seen plenty of Little Bridge, so it was an easy decision for me to head out the back to watch Joy And Fun canter slowly, ridden by his trainer Derek Cruz, up Long Hill (pictured).

If, though, it reflected poorly on the organisers that these two horses were working simultaneously and separately, it reflected even more badly on the press, who ignored them both.  I suspect that nobody watched Little Bridge (and more fool them, as he's now the King's Stand winner) and, amazingly, only six people watched Joy And Fun - and two of them were  Derek Cruz's wife and very nice son Trevor (seen walking in alongside the horse)!  The remaining hundred-plus journos just mooched around in Abington Place, complaining about Black Caviar's invisibility and hoping to catch another glimpse of her.  I was embarrassed on behalf of Joy And Fun's connections, as it was a collective disgrace that he was there but ignored.

And then, to complete the f**k-up, Ortensia came out for her exercise, which involved walking around the extremely murky indoor ride (as she had galloped the previous day).  That meant that she was as close to being invisible as it was possible to be (as you'll see from this photograph, in which photographer Steve Cargill is looking at, but not photographing, her) - but that didn't matter because nobody seemed interested in her anyway.  I'm told that I very closely resemble the QC in the Leveson Inquiry - well, if that inquisition/whitewash (delete as applicable) paints the British press in a poor light, this press morning depicted it even less flatteringly.  I thought at the time, 'I wish one of these other horses could go and win at Ascot and make the journos realise how stupid and ignorant they have been so completely to ignore them' - and now, justice done, Little Bridge has won the King's Stand.

On a more positive note, a more satisfactory event has been the annual pre-Ascot invastion of human visitors from Australia.  There's always a really good crew of them here for a few days en route to Ascot.  This year, courtesy of Black Caviar, they showed up in record numbers.  I generally try to spend a bit of time with them.  Going to Salisbury on Sunday, I couldn't see them then, but I spent an excellent evening on Saturday with one bunch in the Bedford Lodge and then joined two groups (led by two really nice men Bryan Martin and Wayne Wilson, the former chief race-callers of Melbourne and Brisbane respectively) for an hour or so on the Heath on Monday morning.  It was an excellent hour, in which they saw plenty of nice horses including Frankel and were able to pass the time of day with plenty of the locals.  Included among the locals was our favourite honorary local Michael Holding, who couldn't have been nicer when I pointed him out to a few dozen of the Aussies with the suggestion, "There's Michael Holding.  He's the friendliest man you'd ever find, so why don't you all head over to say G'day".  As all Aussies love cricket as much as racing, his presence was perfect - and I was delighted to be able to take a photograph of two sporting legends, the other one (on the left of shot) being the great former Kiwi jockey Bob Skelton.

Remarkably, Bob was not the only Melbourne Cup-winning hoop on the Heath as Ray Selkrig, champion jockey in Sydney in 1958/'59 (following Neville Sellwood and preceding George Moore) and rider of the 1961 Melbourne Cup winner Lord Fury, was also in the group.  He seems a lovely man and it was a pleasure and honour to meet and chat with him.  Ray (pictured here, with Bryan Martin on right of shot) rode, of course, in the era when most of Australia's top jockeys rode in Europe at some stage, but he never did: he said that he was offered a contract one time but turned it down (Bill Williamson then accepted it) but that he didn't regret not coming as, although it would have been a great experience, he wouldn't have been champion jockey at home if he'd gone travelling and wouldn't have won six Derbys (including three, the VRC, AJC and QTC in 1964/'65, on Royal Sovereign, the best horse whom he ever rode and who has a feature race in Sydney named after him).

Just before I close, I must salute Princess Haya.  The Prince of Wales's Stakes today was a cracking race, with lovely So You Think recording his tenth Group One victory.  I thought that he looked the best he's ever looked in Europe, appearing to have regained the depth, strength and solidity which he'd exhibited when trained by Bart but which he lacked last year.  That was lovely and he was a really popular winner - but surely Carlton House (pictured returning from a gallop on Racecourse Side early one morning last week, with his usual rider John Nolan) would have brought the house down had he won rather than finished second.  I'm full of admiration for this lovely horse because it seemed (with the wisdom of hindsight, now that we know that he didn't win it) to have been the wrong decision to run him in last year's Derby, from which he unsurprisingly seemingly came back very sore.  It's great that, a year on, he's got over that - and it would have been really, really great had he been able to give the Queen a Group One victory at Royal Ascot in Diamond Jubilee year/month.  The loveliest thing of all came when Princess Haya was being interviewed on the BBC after her filly Joviality had won the Windsor Forest Stakes, the previous race. She had Colombian set to run in the Prince of Wales's Stakes, and when asked of her hopes for him in the race, she replied, instantly, straight from the heart and with complete sincerity, "I hope that Carlton House wins".  It was a lovely moment, and when Rishi probed further, asking about Sheikh Mohammed's views, bearing in mind that Godolphin had two runners, she responded, "We all hope that Carlton House wins".  It was a wonderfully moving moment.  Sportsmanship isn't dead.

Our trip to Windsor

It was an enjoyable trip to Windsor on Monday with Gus having some great fun running around both before and after racing; and with Grand Liaison doing us proud, even if it was a slightly frustrating outing as she didn't get the run of the race.  But that's Windsor.  I've never trained a winner there which might explain my reluctance to go there when we have a horse who looks as if he or she is just about ready to win; but, leaving my prejudices aside, it is widely reckoned that one needs even more luck in running than usual there.  However, Grand Liaison, having been eliminated from Yarmouth the previous week, had only two options this week - and the other was Brighton, another track where one ought to expect the unexpected.  She'd have been in a full field at Brighton, which means that one's fate could have been in the lap of the gods, so it was a relatively easy decision to head to Windsor.

She ran well to finish third, doing well to get so close after being too far back early on.  It wasn't the aim to get back, but that's Windsor: it was a rough race, she was squeezed out after about 300m, and our goose (our metaphorical goose, that is, not one of the many geese who roam along the banks of the Thames next to the track while the races take place) was cooked at that point.  Still, it was very good to see her run so well and so genuinely, especially after the form of her previous second place at Leicester had taken a couple of serious knocks.  I wasn't actually too concerned about the Leicester form being let down, because the race at the time had seemed to be a proper test.  However, one couldn't ignore the fact that its winner (Sea Fever), its third (Neige D'Antan) and it's fourth (Kaiser Wilhelm) had all subsequently run poorly, seemingly leaving a question mark over the merit  of our second place.  However, Sea Fever had over-raced when a badly beaten favourite next time (unlike at Leicester, where he travelled very kindly), Neige D'Antan had missed the start again (and I am happy to put a line through the performances of horses who develop a habit of missing the start, as it usually means that they've got something wrong with them) and Kaiser Wilhelm had run on very different (much firmer) ground when tailed off at Yarmouth.

So at least Grand Liaison has been the one of the four to hold her form from one race to the next.  Let's hope that this lovely filly can continue to do so - and if the Racing Post's comments are anything to go by, one might expect Kaiser Wilhelm to pop up one day.  I don't know if you noticed these words, but when the horse finished 10th of 14 in his third maiden race at Kempton on 30th April, Spotlight commented, "Allowed to be very slowly into stride and soon held up in last, pushed along over 2f out, kept on steadily, capable of better".  It's lucky that Chris Catlin isn't litigious: lawsuits have been based on less than that!  I don't know what the stewards' report made of it (disappointingly, unjustifiably and inexplicably, the Racing Calendar no longer carries stewards' reports, which is a real shame as they used to be the most interesting part of the paper) - but it might be worth noting that the horse ran considerably worse than that at Yarmouth last week when finishing last, beaten 29 lengths, off a rating of 62.

Very satisfactory Salisbury

I needn't have worried about the ground having 'gone' at Salisbury yesterday: that lovely racecourse produced some beautiful ground which really was as good as you'd ever see.  It wasn't 'good fast ground'; it was just very good ground, the type you'd work horses on every day of the year if you could.  For Flat racing it would be correct to add a bit of good to soft into the description, while for the jumps one would include a reference to good to firm, but it was basically just perfect ground.

I was very pleased to run horses on it, and I'm sure that the horses were very pleased to be racing on it - as the expression on Batgirl's face in these two pictures of her and Richard Hughes arriving at the start surely suggest.  She ran very well, ridden beautifully (as one would expect from a master of his craft) by Richard Hughes.  Her race was won easily by an improving three-year-old, but she ran well to finish third under 9 stone 12lb in a race which contained several tough and competitive fillies and mares.  So that was good.

As was the run of Wasabi in the same colours of Tony Fordham earlier in the afternoon.  Wasabi (pictured under Cathy Gannon arriving at the start) had rather stunned me by showing typical second-time-out-silliness at Newmarket on her previous start, racing much too fiercely and consequently running very moderately.  However, there was no silliness whatsoever yesterday.  She settled nicely and, while she wasn't as quick as some of the other fillies in the race, she tried hard, did her best and kept on galloping all the way to the line.  She remains a filly who ought to do well, and she certainly confirmed yesterday that her heart is in the right place.

Zarosa's run in the same race was very similar.  She - pictured on the right in the black and pink colours, behind the impeccably-bred Sir Michael Stoute-trained Albanka (Giant's Causeway ex Alidiva) who finished two places in front of her - too found her rivals a bit too quick for her, but she too kept going pleasingly and genuinely.  And for her it was only her first run of the season (as opposed to Wasabi's third) so she is entitled to come on for it.  She'll clearly want to go a bit farther next time, but fingers crossed she's developing into a nice filly too.  So that was good for her - and good for her jockey too, Jimmy Quinn having his first ride back since his six-month disqualification.   I was very pleased to be able to help to welcome Jimmy back to action.  Under normal circumstances one might say that someone's done the crime, done the time and now the slate is wiped clean - but in Jimmy's case, while he has definitely done the time, it is far from certain that he did the crime in the first place.  It was hard enough even at the outset to work out what he had done wrong, particularly as the Disciplinary Committee emphasised that there was no suggestion that he had ever stopped a horse - and that was before serious doubt was cast on the competence of the whole investigation by Kirsty Milczarek having her conviction quashed on appeal.  The feeling, therefore, persists that Jimmy has been extremely harshly treated - so it's great to see him back.

Anyway, I'm a bit tired and so, one might imagine, are yesterday's three runners, all of whom are out in the field at the back as I write (and, as you can see from Wasabi's and Batgirl's demeanours in this photograph, they seem happy enough).  They can have an easy afternoon; but, no rest for the wicked, I'll be heading off to Windsor shortly with Grand Liaison, who is set to contest the 9.10 (aaahhh!).  It'll be about midnight by the time we are home, so I'd imagine that I'll be even more tired tomorrow - but it'll be worth it if Grand Liaison can run as well as she ran at Leicester 13 days ago, because she should go close if she does.

And I'll be able to have a quieter day tomorrow, when I'll be heading nowhere in the afternoon other than in front of the television, when Frankel (pictured meandering contentedly down the side of Long Hill this morning behind his elder three-parts brother Bullet Train, who will also give him a lead, for part of the race anyway, tomorrow) can, we hope, kickstart Royal Ascot in tremendous style.  It's going to be a great meeting and there's a real buzz around the place about it, so I'm sure that it will get its share of coverage in this blog later in the week.  But for now all roads lead to Windsor!

Ladies' days

As remarked in the previous chapter, last Friday's meeting at Musselburgh was Ladies' Day.  And I can't leave that subject behind without saluting a few of them.  Bearing in mind the meeting's title, it was most appropriate that the day should end with a rare occurence: two mother/daughter trainer/jockey combinations winning the last two races.  First we had Karen Tutty winning the second last with Jupiter Fidius, ridden by her apprentice daughter Gemma.  And then we had the concluding lady amateurs' race falling to Talk Of Saafend, trained by Dianne Sayer (who also sent out the third-placed Cool Baranca, as well as another third place-getter earlier in the afternoon) and ridden by her daughter Emma.  Horses ridden by Emma for her mother have a great record, Flat and National Hunt (often the same horses running under both codes) and this really is a stable to look out for, as we found out last year when Hot Rod Mamma won five consecutive races, which really is a feat easier said than done.  And salutations also to Katie Margarson, who rode what I think was her first winner when partnering the Richard Guest-trained Cut The Cackle to victory in the amateurs' race at Hamilton on Wednesday night.  That was good - and even more impressive was that, the race having taken place at 6.20 the previous evening in Scotland, Katie was still back home to ride out for her her dad at 6.00 the following morning, as this photograph proves.  Good on 'er.

Weather with you

I enjoyed the outing back to my homeland over the past couple of days.  And I'd like to think that Ollie (Orla's Rainbow) enjoyed it too.  We drove through some really solid rain all the way up through Yorkshire and Northumberland, so I was quite relieved to find, once we got near Edinburgh, that we were merely battling our way through light rain.  But it was light rain that had been coming down for several hours.  We'd gone up there to find ground which wasn't too soft, and thanks to Musselburgh's well-drained peculiarites we just about got it.

When I walked (part of) the track a couple of hours before racing, the ground was perfect, and it probably just ended up as something approximating good to soft: good ground with the top rather too loose and yielding for it to qualify as 'good'.  So we just about got away with it and Ollie (pictured cantering back in off the track after the race, and then a few hours later tucking into his tea in the racecourse stables) ran well enough, finishing fifth, beaten about four lengths.  That was good.  And what was even better was that at every stage of his trip, from leaving home at 4.20 on Friday morning to getting back at 2.40 on Saturday afternoon, he was angelic.

He's a smashing little horse and is shaping up as a really sensible, professional, enthusiastic and willing little racehorse.  And his rider Lee Newman, whom I'd never even spoken to prior to yesterday, was equally good: he couldn't have been more helpful, sensible or positive.  In particular, he really endeared himself to me with a display of helpfulness well beyond the call of duty.  I was there on my own and so was leading Ollie up, so asked Jim Goldie, as kind and helpful a man as you'd ever find, if he could saddle Ollie as well as his own horse in the race.

Jim agreed - only he wasn't required to do anything as Lee, knowing that I was leading up the horse, just weighed out and came out to the pre-parade ring himself with the tack, offering to hold the horse while I saddled him.  It's not as if he was having a quiet afternoon as he had a ride in nearly every race including the previous one.  Jockeys who would do something like that unbidden are worth their weight in gold.  So, all in all, and especially as Musselburgh really is an extremely welcoming place, it was a good afternoon, despite the weather - which in retrospect wasn't that bad, relatively speaking, because it was much worse today.

It was such a shame for Musselburgh that the weather was so miserable because it was Ladies' Day.  They still got a good crowd and the bulk of the crowd put a brave face on things, but it really would have been much more satisfactory had the weather not been so reminiscent of November.  Still, it actually deteriorated after racing, making one realise that it could have been worse.  And then this morning I awoke to find that it had been raining all night.  And then the rain got harder.  I treated myself to a drive through my homeland in the borders on the way home (which is actually slightly shorter than sticking to the A1, but obviously takes longer, particularly if one is as easily distracted as I am.  Driving through the Borders this morning, it was 7 degrees and raining hard - and the local radio station informed us that the rain would persist all day and that we were in for a top temperature of 10.  What took most time was the list of golf courses closed because of waterlogging.  Midsummer!  Still, it's a lovely part of the world, even when the rain is constant and the clouds are obscuring much of what one should be seeing.  The pictures of the Minto Hills above Hassendean Station (a halt at a farm, which impressively is still painted smartly even though no train has run along the absent line for more than 40 years) and the "view" looking south into Northumberland say it all.  But even in the rough conditions it's great, and at this time of year the almost ubiquitous rhododendrons look lovely whatever the weather.

And now back home we have drying conditions. Let's see if I complain about it having dried up too much at Salisbury tomorrow, where we run three horses (Zarosa, Wasabi and Batgirl) all of whom I regard as horses who might appreciate some cut.

The favourite's home - courtesy of George Moore's whiste

You may have seen the news story which Emma put up on the site about the favourite winning.  This, of course, was Kadouchski, who is our favourite at all times, even when he is the outsider in the betting, as he was on Monday when winning at Folkestone under a top ride from Hannah.  I'd been very pleased at the chance to let him run on the Flat on soft ground, conditions which have always brought out the best in him over hurdles but which he had never previously encountered on the Flat.

I thought that the going would surely bring him right into it, especially as he was racing off a mark only 2lb higher than when winning at Folkestone on firm ground last July.  And Spotlight in the Racing Post clearly held the same opinion, making him the selection.  I was, therefore, rather surprised as the horses cantered to post to note that he was the 8/1 outsider (and actually returned 17/2) in the five-horse race (the field having been reduced by two scratchings).  Even so, I have so much respect for the top-weight Golan Way, who has put in so many terrific runs over jumps, that I thought that, even getting a stone and a half with him on top weight as us at the bottom, he'd be a hard horse to beat.

And so it proved: we won by three quarters of a length from Golan Way.  And we have Hannah's ride to thank.  She did everything right, mooching around on the inside behind the leaders all the way, waiting and waiting until the gap came in the straight almost as if George Moore was there with his whistle, and then squeezing through it.  Carrying 7lb more (ie without her claim) he couldn't have won, and he couldn't have won without everything going right in the race too.  If she had adopted the all-too-popular tactics of challenging on the outside around the final bend, as one sees on a daily basis, he wouldn't have won.  So that was excellent.  And it was pleasing that Hannah got so much recogition for it, the press being very quick to highlight the ride, and even one of the senior jockeys who rode in the race (Dane O'Neill) tweeting that it was a "cracking ride".  So that was just lovely all round.  And Gus enjoyed it too: as ours was the last race, things were quiet enough afterwards for him to help supervise Kadou in his victory pick.

Monday was, of course, in plenty of other respects a shocking day.  Terrible weather in much of the south east.  Newmarket didn't fare too badly and neither did Folkestone (which apparently only copped 10mm of rain, all in the morning) but the area from north London down to the south coast and along into West Sussex seems to have had about two inches in the one day, which is as solid a deluge as one would usually ever see in the UK.  We drove through so much really heavy rain on the way down to Folkestone (where, miraculously, we didn't get rained on at all) before finding that it was still raining solidly for most of the journey home several hours later.

Anyway, as you can see in the previous paragraph, conditions were bleak on the Heath on Monday morning, while Tuesday was almost similarly grim.  Much better conditions the past couple of days, fortunately, with Wednesday's dawn, as you can see, having the sky much less full of cloud than it had been previous couple of days.  Things did subsequently spoil a little bit, but we've had reasonable amounts of sunshine too today so I hope that we're going in the right direction.  Tomorrow could be a big setback, though, if the forecast is right, so we must hope that, while we want plenty of rain for Batgirl, Wasabi and Zarosa to get nice soft ground on Sunday at Salisbury, there isn't so much that racing is abandoned.

Ethics Girl and Ollie (Orla's Rainbow) were entered at Sandown tomorrow, but the ground 'soft, heavy in places' with more rain forecast made it a no-brainer not to declare those two particular horses.  (Other entries not to be running include Grand Liaison, who missed out by one when eliminated from Yarmouth today; while Ruby's intended debut has been postponed by a couple of weeks, the result of a sore foot - the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that).  However, we put Ollie in at Musselburgh too and I hope that we'll find a sound surface there, so I'll be heading up there with him early tomorrow.  I love going up there so, once I've got over the very early start, I hope that it's an enjoyable trip.  I hate being away from home overnight, but it would be unrealistic to go up and down in the day, so we'll stay there after racing and come home on Saturday.  Let's hope that it's a worthwhile trip - and Ollie is certainly giving himself every chance: I've told him to keep himself fresh with a long journey ahead of him and, as you can see, he's taking me at my word.

If only I'll Have Another was as tough as Kadou or Terry



Black Caviar, so we are told, arrived in town yesterday evening, and I'm afraid that she won't have found conditions much more appealing than those of the Melbourne winter whence she has come.  I was initially thinking that things weren't too bad because at least it wasn't cold - but by midmorning, when it was raining hard and blowing a gale, it was becoming increasingly hard to see any positives at all in our environment.

However, I'd seen a positive earlier on: a deer in Exeter Road, which was a rare treat.  Just a muntjak, of course, but he was really sweet as he scampered up the street (above) towards the Clock Tower sometime before 7.00.  He was rather alarmed, but fingers crossed the town was still quiet enough at that time for him to be able to find his way back to the Heath, and thence to whichever part of the surrounding woodland he calls home.  I hope that he was snug at home by the time the storm was at its peak three or four hours later - and this photograph really doesn't do justice to just how bad conditions were, as it gives little clue as to the strength of the wind.

The awful conditions, though, were in one sense quite appropriate, bearing in mind that the 'summer' season on the July Course kicked off with the aforementioned inter-hunts charity race; and hunting, of course, traditionally takes place in weather that usually isn't very clement.  To make it even more authentic I rode Kadouchski up to his assignment at the July Course: after all, were hounds meeting within a handful of miles from one's home, one would ride to the meet, rather than go by box.  And I went there well turned out: Anthony arrived here today, so he and Gus gave Hugh a hand in getting the horse ready, as you can see.  The weather aside (and it actually wasn't too bad while we were up at the July Course as the rain did ease off considerably at that time) it could be considered a happy and successful outing.

Kadou didn't manage to take his July Course record to two wins from two starts, but he did the next best thing, finishing a close and honourable second to the Toby Coles-trained Dear Maurice, who represented the Pytchley (in which country Toby's parents live) and was ridden by that hunt's master Will Spencer (seen heading towards the winner's enclosure afterwards, with Kadou following along behind, destined for the runners-up's berth.

Our rider Rob Ogden, huntsman of the Essex, rode very well, as expected.  He did everything asked of him, gave his mount every chance, and only finished second simply because Dear Maurice, who is a talented if quirky sprinter/miler, was too fast for him at today's distance of a mile, which is considerably less than anything over which Kadou would usually race under normal circumstances.

The photograph which I took of the finish tells the story, with the winner clearly going better just inside the final furlong than Kadou, who is giving brave but vain chase.  What a super horse Kadou is.  As I rode away maybe 30 minutes after the race, I bumped into David Simcock, who was just driving in to saddle a horse in a later race.  David looked at Kadou and remarked, "He looks as if he could go out and do it again", which was very astute as I'd say that Kadou could indeed have done just that (and, I hope, will go out and do something similar, over twice the distance, at Folkestone on Monday).  Horses this tough are in a small minority, as I was reflecting this evening when we got the news that the US Triple Crown dream has been dashed with I'll Have Another going from hot favourite for tomorrow's Belmont to non-runner in the blink of an eye.  I'll Have Another is a terrific horse, but he now faces retirement after something like seven races.  That ought not to be the way it is - but, as things are, horses like Kadou who can go out year after year and run well in pretty much whatever you want to put them in, and however often you want, really are worth their weight in gold.

Just before I close, I should add that a further pleasure of my trip to the July Course this afternoon was bumping into Terry Clement, who featured in a recent chapter of this blog as a heart attack victim.  Anyway, there was Terry, looking pretty much as he always looks.  He sort of confirmed that he had had a heart attack, replying to my implied query that I gathered that he'd been unwell by saying, "Yes, I had a bad turn and I'm told that it was a heart attack" in the same way that one might remark that the cheese sandwich which one had had for lunch the previous day hadn't been quite up to the usual standard.  But that's Terry: no fuss.  So it was great to see that he was up at the July Course this afternoon, no fuss at all and looking in good shape.  Seeing him there (pictured alongside Newmarket's popular gateman Bill Scott, who was throwing a toffee to Anthony just when this photographs was taken) was as good as having a winner.