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!