Glass half full

As has been observed, last weekend wasn't our best weekend.  Happily, though, it wasn't our worst either.  That came early in August; and, by comparison, pretty much all weekends are good ones.  This past weekend had plenty going for it, not least the weather.  The ultra-brave Ethics Girl (pictured before and after the race, and also at home four days later, showing that the race certainly hasn't done her any harm) did her bit to brighten it, too, showing her usual pluck to finish fourth on ground which she didn't enjoy: she was struggling with a circuit to go, but just wouldn't stop trying, as her heroic fourth place under a massive weight suggests.

As I had remarked beforehand, when one goes to Chester it's hard to know quite what ground one will find.  That's probably just as well, as otherwise they probably wouldn't have very big fields.  They do their best, though.  There was a poster outside the racecourse (and when one goes there, one spends quite a lot of time outside the racecourse, because driving from Newmarket to the the point at which Chester racecourse comes into view can seem easier than driving from the point at which Chester racecourse comes into view to Chester racecourse) which proclaimed that they hold 17 days' racing each year; and from a turf management point of view Chester is a track which probably could ideally cope with slightly less than half that number.

Considering that after the damage inflicted at the May meeting they ideally wouldn't have raced again at Chester for a year, and considering that they've raced in some more terrible weather since then (including the Sunday when they ran the first couple of races and then found half the straight suddenly submerged) the track is in remarkably good condition.  It's just that the surface (not helped by having a worryingly large - and unnecessary - percentage of sand in the topsoil) is, unsurprisingly, desperately loose, being the type of ground which defies adequate description when one is restricted to terms such as 'good', 'good to soft', 'good to firm' etc.  As it was, the ground was called 'good, good to soft in places' and one, in theory, can't really complain about that (even if such a description doesn't even begin to sum things up).

And I'm not complaining as one knows before one goes that one is going to ask one's horse to race on an unsatisfactory surface, simply because asking a track such as Chester (which has virtually no spare acreage to play with and which is in a little hollow by a river) to stage 17 racedays in any year, let alone a freakishly wet one, and still provide a satisfactory surface is asking for the impossible. (This photograph, by the way, in case you were wondering, was taken not after the last, but after the second race).  Anyway, the post-script to these meanderings is that I might take The Mare back there at the end of next week (and I'm not joking) which probably wasn't what you expected to hear.  It's a very well-run track indeed, where a large and extremely friendly and diligent work-force does its best to put on as good a show as possible, and it's generally a pleasure to go there.  Even if I'm probably not the best person to comment on that, bearing in mind that last Saturday was the first time that I'd been there since the new stables were built, and that the 'new' stables are now probably at least five years old.

I go to Folkestone considerably more often than I go to Chester.  It's one of my favourite tracks.  It's an easy drive from here down into Kent on the M20, and the course's employees are outstanding - not least the groundstaff who provide decent ground all year round.  I've been there in the depths of winter and been amazed not to find the quagmire which one might have expected, and I've been there in the height of summer and been amazed not to find the road which one might have expected.  All in all, I'll miss it hugely if and when it closes - and the fact that it can be up for closure, when the country doesn't have enough racecourses as things are, and when so many vastly inferior tracks have a secure future, leaves one almost lost for words.

Almost, but not quite.  Which is just as well because it means that I can say that, although Silken Thoughts (pictured in the previous paragraph cantering to post under the excellent Silvestre de Sousa) finished out the back, I'm not too discouraged.  I think that she just wants a stiffer test of stamina, which meant that she was in the wrong race, particularly as, as 1900m races go, this was a real speed test.  Our neighbour Charlie McBride ran his nice German mare Amoya in it; she had made all the running to win over seven furlongs at Yarmouth and the plan with her on Sunday was to lead, but she couldn't get to the front at any stage of the race, eventually finishing one place in front of Silken.  It's no wonder that our mare was going as fast as she could from the outset, and hence no wonder that she could do nothing in the closing stages.

Nor, it transpired, could Simayill (ridden by Franny Norton as things worked out, which I think is different to what I suggested in the last chapter) at Wolverhampton the next day (pictured before the race in the previous paragraph and after it in this one).  But again that's not the end of the world.  It was her first run since January and her first run since a spell and, as lack of recent racing always for some reason seems to be more of a disadvantage on the AW than on the grass, it's consequently understandable that she knocked up in the closing stages.  Still, although she finished last, she was 'only' beaten ten lengths, and she travelled well and enthusiastically for most of the race.  She's come home fine from that, so fingers crossed, she should be able to build on that.