Playing the game?

More runners coming up.  And the weather's sort-of turned, too.  This morning was again foggy and relatively cold (as you can see here and in the penultimate paragraph through Gift Of Silence's ears on Long Hill at around 7.00 this morning) but at least it wasn't raining - and, right on cue, the sun broke through, as forecast, about midday to leave us with a lovely warm, balmy, hazily-sunny afternoon.  So that's great: we can expect to go to Lingfield tomorrow evening and then to Fakenham the following afternoon without worrying about being rained on.

So, to our runners.  Tommy (Platinum Proof) runs on the AW at Lingfield tomorrow evening, while Ethics Girl runs in a maiden hurdle at Fakenham on Sunday afternoon.  I'd like to think that both will run well.  (They are shown here last Sunday, with Tommy in front and Ethics Girl in second).  Tommy was going to be ridden by Neil Callan, but the running plans of James Tate (for whom Neil has a commitment to ride) changed because of the rain, meaning that James re-routed a horse from Brighton to this race, meaning that Neil was not, after all, free to ride for us.  But Seb Sanders rides instead, so that's OK.

And Ethics Girl, too, should get plenty of help from the man on top: the boom 7lb-claimer Mr Conor Shoemark takes the ride, which makes sense as, being very small, she will surely appreciate every pound by which her burden is reduced.  She's pictured here, during the same exercise last Sunday, having a refresher course over the hurdles (ridden by the Czech jumps jockey  Petr Kriz) - and I hope that she'll jump with similar elan on Sunday.  If she does, she should acquit herself very creditably.

I ought, I suppose, to comment on the debacle of  Frankie's (that's Frankie Dettori, not Douchkirk, I hardly need add) return to the saddle.  It was clear that we were in trouble when the Racing Post announced yesterday (Thursday) afternoon that Frankie had at last been re-licensed, so would be able to ride from Friday onwards.  That, of course, was nonsense: correctly, it should have meant that he would be able to ride from Sunday onwards, on the basis that the deadlines for declaring jockeys for Friday's and Saturday's racing had already passed, with Sunday being the first day whose deadline was yet to come.  But no: yesterday evening it was announced that he'd be replacing Kieren on Beatrice Aurora and Adam Kirby on Fattsota, while late morning today the announcement came that he'd be replacing Neil Callan on Sri Putra three hours thence. (Giving those involved the benefit of the doubt, I should point out that it could be the case that Adam Kirby was indisposed, as I see that Ryan Moore won on one of his intended mounts later in the afternoon).

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  I'm delighted to see Frankie back and I'm a massive fan, but he shouldn't have come back like this.  That's just not the way to behave, and I don't know who comes out of this with more discredit: the horses' connections for asking for the substitutions, Frankie for being part of them, or the stewards for allowing them.  This is surely against both the rules and the spirit of the sport, which, after all, is still meant to be a sport, conducted in a gentlemanly and correct manner.  And that's not really how I'd describe this sorry episode.  (By the way, as we have room for another photograph, this paragraph is illustrated by the top-class South African sprinter Shea Shea, ridden by Gary Gillespie and looking rather discomfitted after the warmth of South Africa and Dubai by yesterday's cold, wet and grey conditions).

Groundhog summer?

Hard to swallow that we've gone from a very nice day on Sunday to a genuinely lovely one on Monday - and then straight to two shockers Tuesday and Wednesday.  Wet, cold, and worryingly reminiscent of last 'summer' (during pretty much any morning of which these photographs - first and last paragraphs - of today's view on the Heath, with the sky matching Gift Of Silence's coat, could have been taken).  Still, we'll take things one day at a time.  Taking the weather seriously, it does become ever harder to understand why the weather forecasts are so shockingly unhelpful.  Is it really that hard?  It isn't random: it's a regular chain of causes and effects, consequences of observed factors which ought to be predictable.  Not so, it seems.

Anyway, besides plenty of rain, we had a trip to Lingfield to enjoy yesterday.  And the two things weren't unconnected: thanks to the rain, the trip was less enjoyable than it might be.  The rain didn't actually spoil the evening by falling during racing, because thankfully the deluge had ceased by the time that we arrived; but the half-inch which the track had absorbed through the day meant that conditions were very taxing, which duly helped Annia Galeria to run very poorly.  She might not necessarily have run particularly well anyway, but - but she would surely have run at least a bit better on a dry track.  I hope that we'll find out a bit more on a drier surface somewhere in the near future.

We did, though, have a good bonus that evening as the first race featured the debut of the most exciting (on paper, anyway) two-year-old in Europe: Frankel's Oasis Dream half-sister Joyeuse.  That was terrific, particularly as we had Anthony, another massive Frankel fan, with us.  He had the pleasure and honour of shaking hands with Frankel's two riders (his morning partner Shane Featherstonehaugh, who now looks after Joyeuse, and Tom Queally) and also of seeing this attractive immature little filly make a comfortable winning debut.  Amazingly, the Racing Post's SP forecast had not put her in as favourite, but logic said that the only reason she would be running this early in the season would be to get her ready for Royal Ascot; and she duly justified hot favouritism in the style of an Albany Stakes prospect.  It was only a shame that there was such a pathetically small crowd there to enjoy the spectacle of her first public appearance.

By the way, at the bottom of a recent chapter a correspondent asked me my views on the Eddie Ahern debacle.  I replied, and I was subsequently reminded of my reply on Monday evening when we watched the second Clare Balding feature of the long weekend, the show on the Queen and her horses.  If you saw this, you'll have seen that Her Majesty had the winner of a staying race at Newbury in which the leader (a Mick Channon horse, possibly Knox Overstreet) was ridden by an apprentice in exactly the same way as Eddie Ahern rode Judgethemoment.  Eddie, as we know, was disqualified for 10 years; while the apprentice got off scot-free.  How so?

Well, the problem, of course, is that mistakes are made in every race.  If they are innocent mistakes, the blunderers shouldn't be punished.  If they are deliberate mistakes, the culprit should have the book thrown at him (or her).  That is what makes things so hard for the stewards: deciding if the bad ride was deliberate or unintentional.  Clearly the apprentice at Newbury cocked up unintentionally, so it was correct to take no action.  It appears as if there is enough evidence to suggest that Eddie Ahern gave his mount exactly the same ride knowing what he was doing - and, if that is the case, a colossal penalty was obviously justified.  Whether it was the right penalty is a matter of opinion: my view is that a long suspension, whether 10 years or whatever, is enough, and that it's overkill to disqualify the culprit (ie preventing him from setting foot on a racecourse or in a training stable, ie from earning a living in racing in any capacity), over and above banning him from race-riding.  A man has to earn a living somehow, and for some jockeys riding horses is all they know.  My view is that ending a jockey's race-riding career is punishment enough.  But that's by the by.  But, on the main issue, it is difficult for the stewards to determine motivation, because that always is the crux of the matter.  The weird thing is when they can't decide so settle on a compromise (as with Adam Kirby on Piper's Piping earlier this year, or with Paddy Aspell with his stalls' blindfold this week): when the options are either a massive penalty or nothing, and the punishment handed out is neither (in these cases, a week ban for Adam and a £140 fine for Paddy).  How do those ones work?  Ah, the problems of the administration of justice!

The other Clare Balding show, of course, was more brahmatic.  Did you see it, the Emily Davison/Anmer one?  There's a very good review of it ('good' in the sense of perceptive and fair, rather than 'good' in the sense of flattering, which is what people often mean when they tell you that their work has received a good review) by Michael Tanner in today's Racing Post.  It's worth reading, if you've missed it.  Michael Tanner is probably the world's greatest expert on the subject, so it is remarkable that he wasn't involved in the making of the programme.  I made two observations (in three tweets) on Twitter in the programme's aftermath: 'It's inconceivable that she could have successfully targetted any specific horse ...', '... Without commentary she would have had no idea where in the field the horse was positioned', and 'I came away hoping the techs were more help in their many murder cases than they were in the show'.  What I didn't touch upon, though, was the poser of how the hell the Clerk of the Course could have been the one to pocket her scarf, bearing in mind that he'd have been half a mile away when the incident happened and that thousands of people would have walked over the scene by the time that he appeared God knows how many minutes or hours later.  (And not to mention how come the Clerk of the Course wasn't called Dorling).  Anyway, that one conundrum has now bee answered by Michael Tanner.

Brought us sunshine

Very remiss of me.  It's three days since those two horses ran at Yarmouth and I haven't posted a review.  Which is bad - and the fact that we'll have another runner tomorrow, who obviously needs a preview, makes it even worse.  And we've had plenty of weather!  Plenty of good weather too, even if Friday was a shocker.  We got off relatively lightly at Yarmouth as it stopped raining there around noon and we didn't get wet, but in Newmarket it basically rained all day.  And the temperature didn't get out of single figures in either place.

Anyway, at Yarmouth, a course with extremely good groundsmen, the track had absorbed very well the inch or so of rain which had fallen over the previous 36 hours.  It was really lovely ground, no worse than good to soft, although I'd imagine that the times might have implied soft ground as there was a stiff headwind up the straight, which meant that for the majority of the races the horses were racing into a stiff wind all the way.  And our two horses both ran well again, doing the same as they'd done there three weeks previously, ie Gift Of Silence (paragraph one) finishing second and Wasabi (this paragraph) finishing third.

Gift Of Silence was a very close second, beaten only a head.  I thought that she was coming with a winning run, but really the winner was just a tad too strong for her, so we have no grounds for complaint.  And what was nice was that the winner Qanan was the third leg of a treble for one of Newmarket's nicest trainers, Chris Wall - who went from one extreme to the other in one day.  He'd got to the fourth week of May without having had a winner all year - and then had three in one afternoon, two ridden by Ted Durcan and one (Qanan, pictured) by George Baker.  And Wasabi too was beaten by good people, the winner of her race Sancho Panza being ridden by Shelley Birkett for her mum Julia Feilden.

So that was good (even if not victorious).  And since then what has been good has been the weather.  Saturday was not great, but at least it was dry.  Sunday, yesterday, was warm and sunny all day.  And today was even warmer, and again very sunny.  Bliss!  What made yesterday even more special was the fact that we moved the horses over from the field which they've been using all winter to the one which they will have for the summer.  And that means, for a few days at least, some lovely spring grass.

This was a source of great excitement for the horses, and for Gus too.  So there's been plenty of frolicking, and plenty of munching too.  There is already considerably less grass in the field than there was at the start of the day yesterday, but that's inevitable.  What will also deteriorate, over and above the grass, is the weather, as we're told that we'll get some rain tomorrow.  But yesterday was a lovely day, and today was even better, with hardly a cloud in the sky all day, as the chapter's final three photographs (with two of James Fanshawe's horses in this paragraph, and Marco Botti's and William Haggas' strings in the next two shots) show.

Tomorrow, though, is another day.  And it is a day which will see us head off to Lingfield's evening meeting to run Annia Galeria.  She's a sweet mare, one whom I know particularly well as I ride her nearly every day.  I've fallen off her too, but I won't hold that against her.  She can be a bit headstrong, but is basically very straightforward.  I imagine that she will be one of the outsiders tomorrow, but I hope that she'll run well, as she's fit and well at present.

Annia won in England in her younger days and won in Jersey a couple of years ago, even though her last season out there (2012) was less successful.  Let's hope for the best tomorrow.  She won at Wolverhampton as a three-year-old over five furlongs making all the running, but we've been working her behind other horses and she seems very settled, so she can run over a bit farther (seven and a half furlongs) and, I hope, take things a lot easier in the first half of the race.  I'd like to hope that things will work out well, but we'll have to wait 24 hours before finding out whether that will be the case.  Fingers crossed.

Vagaries

The vagaries of the weather.  As we know, 'dry' can mean 'wet', and 'wet' can mean 'dry'.  And 'possibility of showers' can mean 1mm or 41mm.  Or 0mm.  The amateur (or professional) meteorologist gets it wrong plenty of times, but at least this week my belief that we could plan to run at Yarmouth on Friday (tomorrow) without being too fearful of firm ground looks justified.  We received plenty of rain here last night and through today (and low temperatures) and Yarmouth, approximately 70 miles east-north-east of here, looks to have had the same.  The weather site says that it still raining there now, which is in line with the forecast's projection for substantial rain in north-eastern areas of  East Anglia, and I'd say that by tomorrow afternoon we'll be more worried about the ground being too soft than too firm.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how our two runners go on soft ground if that is what the course ends up offering.  These two runners (Gift Of Silence and Wasabi) are both fillies for whom my principal concern would be that the ground isn't too firm, so I certainly won't be alarmed by the prospect of sending them out onto a wet track - even if there's no evidence thus far that they'll thrive on it.  But they're both in good form and they each have an in-form jockey booked (Neil Callan and Dane O'Neill respectively) so, if they do handle whatever the underfoot conditions happen to be, it'll be reasonable to hope for two good runs.  We'll see.  They're pictured here, by the way: Gift Of Silence in the field a couple of weeks ago when the weather was still nice, and then the pair of them (Carolina and Hugh up) on Side Hill AW on Saturday.

Another good run

Ah well, Zarosa ran very well yesterday, but couldn't quite complete her hat-trick, going down by a neck to another hat-trick seeker (Albonny), with another hat-trick seeker (Arashi) half a length back in fourth in a blanket finish.  If she'd have been drawn lower she might well have won; if the rain hadn't petered out the day before the race, ditto.  But 'if's, 'what's and 'maybe's are of no use to anyone, particularly when you're not looking for an excuse anyway.  She ran another terrifically game and very creditable race, was again very well ridden by Noel Garbutt, and left us again feeling very proud and very pleased.

In retrospect, we probably ought to have gone to Newcastle.  Chief among the reasons for opting for Nottingham was that the last two days were forecast as being likely to be wetter at Nottingham than at Newcastle.  But, as we know, weather-forecasting is, at best, educated guesswork - and, inevitably, Nottingham had no rain in the last 24 hours, while Newcastle was hit by (unforecast) torrential rain the night before the race.  As if the news of that wasn't galling enough, another consequence of this rain (over and above softening the ground) was that the horse whom I'd rated easily our biggest danger there (Almost Gemini) was scratched from a race which the Racing Post described as "a staying handicap hit by six non-runners".  Ah well!

One might have thought that Almost Gemini's trainer, our neighbour Don Cantillon, might have bounced back from that disappointment (ie the disappointment of the unforecast storm at Newcastle, which he didn't want) today when he took the ultimate 'standing dish' to Southwell, La Estrella (who, confusingly, isn't a mare) whose Southwell record prior to today was 13 wins from 13 runs.  Still, we know that all good things come to an end, and La Estrella's winning Southwell run is now a good thing come to an end, the horse's Southwell record now being 13 wins and one third from 14 runs - which, although Don (pictured on the horse leading the string up Exeter Road a few days ago) might be disappointed in the immediate aftermath (especially as the horse was the odds-on favourite), is still (obviously) extremely creditable.  So I hope that he doesn't forget that.

Having saluted a few youngsters in this blog a few days ago, I ought to salute a couple more.  Jordon McMurray, son of Duncan McMurray who has been in the town for years (even if, if you met him, you might think that he'd only left Scotland yesterday) and who, very appropriately, looked after the John Gosden-trained Irish St Leger dead-heater Duncan, started off round the corner from here in Rayes Lane with Mark Tompkins.  He changed stables a couple of months ago, moving to John Ryan, and I was very pleased to see that he had his first ride in the apprentices' race at Doncaster on Saturday.  He finished last, but that was no disgrace as he was on a no-hoper - so let's hope that he can now follow in the footsteps of Lauren Haigh (pictured here leading up Masarah before the 1,000 Guineas a couple of weeks ago) who 'rode her rivals to sleep' at Yarmouth two weeks ago to win (on Manomine, trained by her boss Clive Brittain) on her third ride.  That was very good.

Sunshine, and its only drawback

Oh, the weather!  Last summer, for all its many faults, did at least come with the consolation that it was very, very rare for trainers to have to worry about running horses on firm(ish) ground.  And that  concern, in a normal good summer, tends to be a big drawback, acting as the one metaphorical cloud on the horizon.  It hasn't really been a worry so far this year - but if we're lucky (in every other respect) it might well be an issue in the coming months.  This week, even, is a case in point, as we have four horses entered, and none of them wants fast ground.

From that point of view, it was slightly alarming to wake yesterday to find that we were back to summery conditions, as these four photographs, all taken yesterday morning, illustrate.  In every other respect, of course, yesterday was a delight, but the sunshine and warm temperatures were slightly concerning.  We have Zarosa (pictured yesterday with Terri as this paragraph's illustration, and also shown through Wasabi's ears in the first paragraph) entered tomorrow and I hope that the sting will still be out of the track at Nottingham (and we should be OK, as it was still rated good to soft today).

In retrospect, though, it might be the case that we ought maybe to have declared for Newcastle instead.  Newcastle was softer but the forecast suggested more chance of rain at Nottingham, which would thus be less likely to dry out - only now I see that they're having (unforecast) torrential rain in Northumberland this evening, so Newcastle could even end up heavy.  If only it was as easy as seeing what the ground is on the morning on which one declares (two days before the race) - that can only be a rough guide as to what it will be two days hence, particularly at this time of year when a nice day or two can dry things out massively.  And the forecasts can often be more of a hindrance than a help.

Anyway, yesterday's sunny conditions didn't last and there was some drizzle overnight, so I hope that we'll be OK.  And I hope that Yarmouth won't be too firm on Friday, and that we'll be happy to run Gift Of Silence and Wasabi there.  Tommy (seen in this paragraph) has had three entries this week, but after Goodwood, when he found ground marginally firmer than good too firm, we won't run him if it's firmer than good.  Two of these three entries have consequently already gone by the board, and we'll just have to wait and see how things go regarding the third of them (at Haydock on Friday).  But if he doesn't run this week, it won't be the end of the world: there are a couple of turf options for him next week, plus one on the AW, and that one will be fine whatever the weather.

The yoof of today

We like to moan about the yoof of today, and I'm probably as guilty of this as anyone.  But one of the many lovely things about having a life within the racing world is that, by and large, the yoof whom one sees is of considerably higher calibre than the general stereotype.  A racing life isn't a hard one, but it's not an easy one either, and shirkers tend not to be attracted to it; or, if they are, they tend to find that the attraction wears off pretty quickly.  The upshot is that we have some cracking youngsters around about us, and I am always pleased to see them doing well.  This week, therefore, has been lovely as we've seen quite a few of our young riders enjoying success.

In the previous chapter, we saw Noel Garbutt enjoying a good ride on Ethics Girl at Newmarket.  The following day was even better, with the apprentice races at both Newmarket and Newbury being won by local apprentices: Jordan Vaughan (pictured in the first paragraph, leading George Margarson's string across the Fordham Road a few days ago) winning at Newmarket on the Ian Williams-trained See The Storm, and Alice Haynes winning at Newbury for her boss David Simcock on Gabrial's King.  And what was also good about that latter race was that Cam Hardie (pictured here in the winter on Magic Ice) - who is now apprenticed to Richard Hannon but who used to ride out for some stables in town, including this one and Michael Stoute's, while he was at school - did well on the William Knight-trained Story Writer to finish third on his first ride.

Things got better as afternoon turned to evening - and another local rider, Mark Marris, rode the winner of the first race at Aintree, a conditional jockeys' handicap hurdle.  Mark used to ride out for Neil King when he was at school, but has been elsewhere since then (including a stint in New Zealand, where he rode a couple of winners, and with Sarah Humphreys) and last winter he was working for Anthony Middleton, for whom he saluted the judge yesterday.  He's back in town at present and is seen here (on the left of shot) riding out this morning with Tommy Keddy.  As with those others mentioned above, he's a cracking youngster, and it was a real pleasure to see him enjoy another good result.

Today, though, we had the pleasure of an even younger member of today's yoof.  Steve Blackwell's son George is probably a budding jockey, but he's not yet old enough for proper racing.  So they have a small horse for the pony racing circuit, and last night the Blackwell family came up from Wales for the 14:2 pony race before racing at Newmarket this afternoon.  The small horse stayed here overnight and George joined our string for one lot this morning, his first experience of riding out in Newmarket (pictured), before getting ready for the race.

We went up to the races to watch the pony race and it was really enjoyable.  George, aged 15 and pictured here in the parade ring led up by his dad, gave his pony a cracking ride to finish third in a big field behind the easy Megan Nicholls-ridden winner.  All in all, it was a pleasure to see a gang of enthusiastic young riders taking part, and generally making something that is actually quite difficult look quite easy.  And it was lovely be able to tag along with the connections of one of the runners and feel involved.  As with the young riders around the town, these children help one to believe that the human race isn't necessarily going to the dogs after all.  And that's a good thought.

Ethics Girl ten, C4 News nil

Once again, dear little Ethics Girl did us more than proud yesterday.  I'd feared that the presence of a younger, unexposed, progressive rival might make the race unwinnable, and I was right.  I got the culprit's identity wrong, though.  Sir Bedivere might indeed be theoretically well handicapped, but he ran as if he had something wrong with him last night, and still wouldn't have finished close to the principals with a stone less on his back.  Which was interesting as he'd been a market drifter.  Arch Villain, though, another four-year-old (ie the youngest a horse could be in the race) was a progressive three-year-old stayer last year and his resumption yesterday showed that he's still going the right way.  He slammed us by five lengths - but our wonderfully genuine little mare, assisted by a lovely ride from Noel whose 7lb claim is a gift, beat the rest.

It was a very pleasant sunny evening (rather surprisingly) and it was easy to glow with pride at her performance.  I walked home with her a happy man, and was in no hurry to move her on from having a good pick of grass on the edge of the Heath on the way.  And you can see in these illustrations how content she was.  And the icing on the cake was that, with our race being the 7.00, it meant that we missed the appallingly misleading and tabloidish edition of Channel Four News which, unbelievably, led with the 'news' that Frankie Dettori has been serving a six-month ban for testing positive to cocaine eight months ago.

Unfortunately, even having worked out from the published snippets that the show had been a load of sh*te, I still decided to waste a quarter of an hour in watching the relevant sections of it online today.  In the past, it's always been an eye-opener to watch current affairs programmes covering racing stories, because they always end up missing the point so badly - which, of course, makes you think that if their coverage of subjects about which you know is bad, it is likely that their coverage of the other subjects are equally bad.  So it was with C4 news, a programme which I had (wrongly) previously respected as a provider of a sensible, realistic and balanced coverage of news.  I know differently now.

Leaving aside that the 'story' is not news (ie Frankie's offence took place eight months ago, and he was convicted six months or so ago), the whole thing was nonsense from the opening sentences.  Jon Snow had always (wrongly, it seems) struck me as a sensible man, but his introductory remarks suggested to me that he had absolutely no clue on the subject he was talking about.  For sure, he wouldn't have written them himself, but you'd have thought that, if he'd any idea about anything, he'd have stopped halfway through and said, "I'm sorry, but this is just sensationalist nonsense.  We can't broadcast this"

I'd say that Clare Balding let herself down by being part of it, but in her defence she probably didn't know that her interview with Frankie would be misused as 'news' and as supposed evidence that British racing is in crisis.  (Which it is, but that's funding crisis - not the fact that one British (well Italian actually, but he's effectively British as this is his adopted homeland and the country in which he is licensed) jockey and one UAE trainer (who has a secondary stable and secondary license in the UK) have committed totally unrelated breaches of drug rules).  But really - the whole thing was just so silly.  Basically, Frankie's reply should have been two sentences: "What I did was inexcusable and I am not going to try to blame anyone but myself.  I let myself down badly, but I've served my sentence and have learned my lesson".'

Instead we got a string of supposed mitigating circumstances which explained why he was supposedly justified in feeling sorry for himself, and why this was the cause of his misdemeanour.  In Frankie's defence, I don't think he would have come up with this nonsense had he not been presented with a string of questions designed to elicit such responses.  But it was just painful to listen to, and I can't sum things up better than Ian Mongan, who tweeted yesterday, "Frankie took cocaine because he was depressed - what hope is there for the rest of us?".

Anyway, if you missed the show, you didn't miss much.  Pretty much all we learned was that C4 news is, after all, a sensationalist, tabloid-style gogglefest which presents the aberrational as the normal, and is not a programme to be relied upon to give a realistic presentation of how the world goes round.  But we also learned, again, what a wise leader we have: I couldn't have been nearly so patient in the face of the nonsense, wild accusations and misleading generalisations which Jon Snow was spouting as to say, "You make a very good point, Jon".  Firstly, it's debatable whether Jon Snow did make even one very good point - and Paul Bittar showed stunning self-control, having paid him that probably-untrue compliment, to restrain himself from adding, " ... along with some very questionable and ludicrously sensationalized ones".

Let's what this evening brings

One moves on.  Our last runner (Douchkirk on Sunday) was a disappointment, so let's see what this evening will bring.  Ethics Girl runs in the 7.00 at Newmarket.  I'd assumed that she would be one of the main chances in this race, bearing in mind her overall consistency and her excellent resumption at Newbury, so was rather taken aback to see her as long as 14/1 in this morning's Racing Post.  I can't believe that she will start anything like that long, but at the same time I'm not expecting her to win.If the second half of that sentence seems rather negative, it's simply because there looks to be a horse in the race who might be a long way ahead of the handicapper.  Sir Bedivere makes his handicap debut in our race - and, in a contest which features plenty very exposed horses (including several who won last time out and, of course, Ethics Girl) he is anything but exposed.  He won a maiden race very impressively last time out, and it's easy to see that he might be a lot better than the mark which the handicapper (by guesswork, bearing  in mind that he only had one run to go on, Sir Bedivere's two previous runs - in 2011 - being almost irrelevant) has given him.We were in a similar situation last summer when we took Silken Thoughts to Sandown for a race which contained several very nice exposed handicappers plus an unexposed horse who had won a maiden race easily on his previous run; that horse seemed a potential blot, duly won - and then (named Encke) beat Camelot in the St Leger a couple of months later.  So we'll head over to the Rowley Mile this evening full of hope as usual, confident as ever that this lovely brave, consistent, genuine little mare will run a bold race - but not expecting too much.I hope that we'll also head over there dry.  Yesterday was a pig of a day: cold, wet, windy.  If this were the middle of winter, you wouldn't feel too down about being rained on in a very strong wind and a top temperature of eight degrees.  But in the middle of May that's not really very funny.  Fortunately, today dawned still and sunny (as you can see through Gift Of Silence's ears in the first photo; through Ethics' ears in the second and third with Grand Liaison, Zarosa and Tommy trotting under her nose in that third photo; and looking at Ethics Girl in the fourth); and, while the sky is now overcast, conditions are still relatively clement.  Let's hope that they remain thus.

"Good jumping ground"???

Yesterday was a very disappointing day, I'm afraid.  I was silly really.  The last time I'd gone to Worcester was 16th June 2010 and I'd said then that I'd never have another runner there.  The ground was as firm as I've ever seen at a jumps meeting and even Ex Con, who needed fast ground, couldn't cope with it.  I came away thinking that horses should never be asked to run over jumps on such conditions, and that any course which provided such conditions should be avoided.  Anyway, time passes; and with Worcester claiming that its ground was "good, good to firm in places" early in its summer season when the weather hasn't been hot, I thought that we'd be OK.

I'd avoided Wincanton, who had honestly admitted its ground to be "good to firm, firm in places", and I'm sure that that was the correct thing to do.  But, really, conditions couldn't have been any worse than at Worcester.  And what should have set alarm bells ringing in my head was the fact that, when the ground was very firm in June 2010 on a day which had what looks like Worcester's highest (ie firmest) ever Going Stick reading, the official ground description was a relatively innocuous "good to firm, good in places".

Anyway, Hugh and I arrived there yesterday feeling rather sorry for ourselves as it was raining - but after I'd had a walk out on the back straight, I came back and observed, "Thank God it is raining, because it's bloody firm out there.  It's proper good to firm ground even by Flat standards".  Things became even stranger when we went over to the other side of the course - and found the ground soft, a real sodden mess.  When William came to weigh out, I posed the question, "Is this ground soft, firm in places, or firm, soft in places?".  Anyway, these were conditions on which one ideally would never even canter a horse, never mind gallop one, never mind race one, never mind race one over jumps - so we got what we deserved, I suppose.

William had schooled Frankie the previous day and the horse had been tremendous.  Neither he nor I saw any similarity between the Frankie who had topped off his preparation on Saturday and the Frankie who ran at Worcester the following day, yesterday.  He looked tremendous beforehand, but soon after the start of the race it was plain that he wasn't comfortable.  He jumped tentatively and raced sluggishly.  Amazingly, he battled to the front at the third last hurdle, but was back-pedalling shortly after the second last.  He dropped right out and, with William easing him, he finished tailed off, William reporting that he'd been hating it.  The exact problem was not immediately apparent, but when he got home I found that he'd put a splint out on his near-fore, which makes his feeble performance easy to understand as every stride, never mind every jump, in the race must have hurt him.  You don't expect that with a mature horse who's had a bit of racing, but then again with racing we know to expect the unexpected - and if ever something like that was going to happen, it would happen on ground as was put on yesterday.

Anyway, no permanent damage done.  This'll settle down and he'll bounce back.  Where does it leave us?  Well, it re-affirms my vow (sadly temporarily lapsed yesterday) never to run a horse at Worcester again.  If that's the best they can do about producing a surface for horses to race on, I'll leave 'em to it without feeling that I'm missing out.  And if that woefully misleading description of the going is the best they can do, ditto.  But a couple of interesting points.  We're often told that to assess the ground, one should just look at the times.  But if 50% of the course is firm and 50% is soft, one very well might get good ground times, even though there's probably not even a square metre of turf on the track which fairly deserves to be called 'good'.  Similarly with Going Stick readings, which are an average of something like 40 readings taken from different points around the track: if half are for soft ground and half are for firm ground, you'll probably get a (shockingly misleading) official reading to tell you that the ground is good.

And where does it leave Worcester?  It leaves it staging plenty of jumps racing through the summer, I'm afraid - and it's hard to see that the racing surface is likely to get better rather than worse.  In June 2010 I'd concluded that it probably shouldn't be staging jumps racing in the summer, and yesterday has again directed me to this opinion.  Worcester used to be a great National Hunt track in the winter, providing 'proper jumping ground', and it used to stage Flat racing (until maybe the late '60s) during the summers - and it mightn't be a bad idea if it (or the BHA) were to re-assess its role, and change its status in the summer from a National Hunt track to a Flat track.  The ground is important on the Flat, but it's far more important for jumps racing, so it would be less worrying if conditions such as those on offer yesterday were presented merely for Flat racing.  You can be absolutely certain that a racing surface such as yesterday's would never be presented for racing at, say, the Cheltenham Festival, as there would be an outcry if it were.  And it's just not good enough to say that it's more important to get it right at the big meetings than at the smaller ones: granted the horses who run at summer jumps fixtures are not so valuable, but they are horses all the same, and putting on ground which would not be deemed acceptable at a major meeting is not acceptable under any circumstances.

And I'm not just saying this because our horse came home sore: I was saying it even before the race was run.  You might ask, then, why I didn't scratch him?  The answer is that, had we had an accurate picture of the ground beforehand, we wouldn't have gone there.  But, having gone, it's awkward to get into the mindset of scratching one's horse: if one starts going down the road of not running because conditions might be dangerous, that's only a stone's throw from never having a runner.  After all, to quote the brahmatic Claude Charlet, "How can you call off racing for being dangerous?  When is it ever safe?".

Illustrating this chapter are photographs of the home straight at Worcester yesterday (this bit of ground is presumably the bit deemed to be "good" - and I didn't take any pictures in the back straight, because photographing firm ground is rather pointless as one just sees grass); of Douchkirk and William before the race; and of the front view of the horse's near-fore leg in the evening, with his new splint clearly visible on the inside.  And then we've got three photos of the aforementioned Ex Con.  One is one of the last times I rode him (eight days ago) and the other two are taken by me during my last ride on him - which was this afternoon, when I rode him down the Snailwell Road to the British Racing School, where he is starting a new life in the company of Our Vic and other lovely horses as a useful part of the education of the next generation of racing lads.  Fingers crossed, it'll transpire that he was made for the role and the role was made for him. He's a wonderful horse who has been a much-loved part of the family here for several years, so it was an emotional journey - but one made exciting by the knowledge that a good new chapter is beginning for him.