Even more and even harder rain

Gee, today really has been sunshine 'n' showers.  With, unfortunately, the sunshine being very much the lesser partner.  But we have had the odd very pleasant quarter of an hour.  But when it's rained, it's really rained, as you can see from the fact that even Ethics Girl, who really loves the great outdoors, seems happy enough to be safe indoors with the overhang shielding her little face from the torrential rain.  I've just come in now from feeding at around 9pm and, by rights, it shouldn't be getting dark yet at this time of year: but the sky was as black as you'd ever see it outside the hours of night, and with the wind getting up such conditions really would have been suitable for filming a video for Chris De Burgh's 'Waiting for the hurricane'.

It had, at least, been dry, even if the clouds were very heavy, when Ethics Girl (pictured) had been one of three horses whom we took up to the Links this morning.  William kindly came up from Lambourn for a schooling session and he did his usual excellent job of giving the pupils (Ex Con, Frankie and Ethics Girl) some practice.  There's not much Ex Con has to learn about jumping, obviously, but he hadn't jumped anything for nearly 15 months, so there was no harm in giving him a refresher in advance of his (hopefully) imminent resumption.

So William put him over the line of hurdles a few times and then Gemma jumped back on board so that he could be the mate for the less experienced pupils, as you can see in this photograph as he and Gemma are on the left, beside William and Frankie.  So that was grand as all went really well.  I know that I've said this on many previous occasions, but it's worth repeating how lucky we are to have a jockey of the calibre of William Kennedy giving us so much help with these jumpers.

No rest for the wicked - and, with Ex Con getting ready to resume from a year off, there's no harm in giving him plenty of extensive exercise.  He was out again the following lot for a canter up Long Hill - which under normal circumstances would not have rated a mention in this blog.  But these were not normal circumstances.  This was a red-letter day for our pupil Abbi, who has been helping us out at weekends etc. since the end of last year, who has just left school and who is due to go to the Racing School at the end of the summer.  She's been doing really well in picking up the various skills involved in working in a racing stable and trying very hard, so she really deserved the chance to take a big step forward today in having her first canter.  And Ex Con was the perfect horse to help her make this advance.  Good on 'em both.

Someone else who will, I hope, be taking a step forward will be Wasabi (pictured on the Heath this morning with Terri) at Epsom tomorrow.  She's struggled in her three maiden races, but she should find things a lot easier tomorrow on her handicap bow off a rating of 58.  This isn't a tipping column and this isn't meant to be a tip - but it's just a statement of the obvious that it'll be easier to run off a rating of 58 in a handicap than at level weights in a maiden race.  Whether she'll be able to take enough of a step forward tomorrow remains to be seen - as she's by Tiger Hill from a Carnegie mare, she might well end up needing more time and more distance still - but it's always a pleasure taking a nice horse to Epsom, so I'm looking forward to seeing how she'll fare.  I just hope that we don't get drenched while we are doing so, which on recent form has to be a strong possibility.

As I said, this isn't meant to be a tipping column, but even so I'm going to give you a tip.  I was given a tip a few weeks ago by my friend John McNamara to watch the pre-Olympic satirical bogus fly-on-the-wall documentary 'Twenty Twelve'.  I only got around to taking the tip last night, and I wish I'd done so sooner.  It's an outstandingly well-written, well-produced, well-acted and funny show, so if you haven't seen it, my suggestion is to start to make up for lost time.  You won't regard any time spent watching it as time wasted.  And how many television programmes can one say that about?