Great excitement

Great excitement: we haven't had a runner for something like four weeks, but we should have four this week, starting with Douchkirk at Fontwell tomorrow.  Not having had a runner for a while, one gets out of the habit, so I hope that I don't forget what to do tomorrow.  In fact, I haven't driven a vehicle for a while, and even that starts to seem slightly daunting when one has got out of practice.  But probably the most daunting thing is trying to work out what to expect from Frankie (ie Douchkirk) who ran no sort of race whatsover at Towcester last time.

This horse won a bumper on his debut what seems like a lifetime ago, so it's disappointing that he's managed to avoid winning over jumps.  He's running out of chances as one can only ask any set of connections to stomach so many disappointments from any one horse, so let's hope that he puts his best foot forward tomorrow.  He seems in very good shape so should do so, but we'll be wiser come dusk tomorrow.  He'll have an in-form jockey on, which is nice, as William has had three winners in the past week or so, which is good.  Let's hope that Frankie can help to extend this well-deserved run of form for a shockingly under-used jockey.

Later in the week we should have Fen Flyer and Indira running in consecutive races at Kempton on Thursday evening, and then Russian Link at Southwell on Friday afternoon.  I'm looking forward to all three; particularly Indira as not only will this be her debut, but it'll be our first two-year-old runner of the year.  You might say that we're leaving it a bit late (until 12th December) to have our first two-year-old runner of the year, but look at it another way: once she's run (and God willing that should definitely happen) we'll have run every two-year-old we've had in the stable this year, and not even Richard Hannon would be able to say that.

On another subject, I finished reading Jamie Reid's book 'Doped' on Saturday evening.  It is outstanding.  It has been voted Sports Book of the Year, but I'd suggest that it could be Sports Book of the Decade.  It's very informative, very through-provoking and very entertaining, and I thoroughly recommend it.  One thought which it does provoke, incidentally, is how the hell did Philip 'Snuffy' Lawler, who features very prominently in the book as the doper of several Noel Murless-trained horses including Pinturischio, manage to spend his final years as a recipient of Racing Welfare's charity living in Jim Joel Court?  (Assuming that the two Snuffys are the same person, which I believe them to be).

Illustrating this chapter are the ears of the four runners (Frankie, Fen Flyer, Indira and Russian Link) photographed during their work on a very nice December morning yesterday.