Let's hope that the sunshine lasts

I enjoyed my afternoon of brahmae in the ATR studio with Robert Cooper on Tuesday.  As luck would have it, I'd already had one ATR filming assignment that day, Sean Boyce plus crew having appeared in the stable earlier in the morning seeking a Newmarket-based opinion of Frankel (pictured under Shane Featherstonehaugh back in the 'summer') for a pre-Champions Day feature which the channel will be showing next week.  That made an enjoyable interlude, and the afternoon was fun too.  It wouldm though, have been even more fun had Blue Dune won the 2-miler at Wolverhampton instead of being an arguably unlucky head runner-up.

I've been unlucky, really.  One can't please all the people all the time, but it seems as if it's particularly hard to please many of them if one's the pundit for the afternoon on a day when a favourite is beaten when he should have won; and this was my second such recent instance.  Tom Queally had got things wrong on Picture Dealer at Doncaster when I was on the TV in the summer, losing a race by a head when he should have won it, and the same thing arguably happened to Silvestre De Sousa this time.  On the previous occasion I'd even incurred the wrath of an RUK spokesman, but fortunately there was no danger of this happening again this time, RUK having invented Silvestre De Sousa.  The nice thing was, though, that (although outnumbered by the few emails saying that we shouldn't have criticised him at all and the many saying that we had been far too kind to him) there was some feedback saying that our comments had been fair, which was much appreciated.  Anyway, Silvestre De Sousa, an outstanding jockey, frequently wins races he shouldn't win and once every decade or so manages not to win one which he arguably should have done - so how unlucky was I that that latter occurence happened on my shift?!

I did actually get off quite lightly because both Robert and I failed to pick up Hayley Turner getting things wrong on a joint-favourite in a sprint handicap.  ("... steadied start, held up well off the pace towards rear, pushed along and effort when not clear run and hampered entering final furlong, switched left, shaken up and stayed on towards finish, never troubled leaders" - eighth, beaten two and a half lengths).  We probably should have discussed that - but, as luck would have it, that took place in a race of which I'd tipped the 16/1 winner (who paid 32.50 on the Tote) so we were so shell-shocked by that (for either us to tip any winner is remarkable enough, never mind one at double-figure odds) that we couldn't look beyond the principals.  And probably just as well!

Anyway, to bring things closer to home, we've had a really lovely morning today.  In the previous paragraph and in this one you'll see two of the scenes which we enjoyed around 9.00 when we headed along past the bottom of Warren Hill and then up around Side Hill, cantering on the grass.  It was great as there was hardly a cloud in the sky all morning, so we really were able to enjoy the acceptable face of autumn, for a few hours at least.

The problem, of course, is that yesterday we had an almost equally lovely morning (as you can see in this paragraph, courtesy of the picture of the Smart Strike colt and Roy, ridden by Iva and Terri respectively, heading towards the stalls for some practice around noon yesterday) which had fallen apart to the extent that it was raining by dusk, which meant that we had some overnight rain for the second night in a row.  And - and this is the worst part - there is a band of heavy rain forecast to arrive into the south-east overnight tonight.  Ascot's ground was already good to soft (although should be good by this evening, I'd suggest) and any further deterioration would probably rule out Ethics Girl's participation in the Gordon Carter Handicap tomorrow.

That would be a real shame because Ethics (pictured after her work on this lovely sunny morning) is very well, the race looks very suitable and we have Frankie Dettori booked to ride her.  It would be very disappointing not to run her, but if it got very wet that would probably be the correct decision.  Good to soft would be OK but far from ideal, but anything softer than that really would see us achieve nothing more than a wasted journey were we to head away.  Let's see what the morrow brings - and let's hope that it is another dawn of clear, dry skies.  That, though, does not look the most likely scenario, I'm afraid.