Straightforward

That's another busy day done.  Hannah headed off to Yarmouth with Gift Of Silence and Wasabi in Tim Phillips' box, while I went to Nottingham with Zarosa (whose plating this morning had gone smoothly, thanks in part to Gus' supervision, as you can see).  And I was very glad that I did, because I decided not to run her there, which would have been a difficult decision for me to address had I been at Yarmouth.  The 'good to soft' of declaration time went to 'good to soft, good in places' yesterday, and thence to 'good, good to soft in places' this morning (when we had some rare rain in Newmarket).  At Nottingham, though, it was a lovely day.

The ground was changed to 'good' in advance of the first race, during which several horses had difficulty keeping their feet on the bend.  The resultant stewards' inspection of the track decided that racing could continue as long as the bend was re-aligned, which meant that the second race was run half an hour after its scheduled time, in the slot which should have contained the third race.  The winner of this second race, a Class Five handicap, ran less than a second over the course record - which tied in with my impression on walking the track that the ground was firmer than 'good'.  Zarosa has won on 'heavy' and has won (and been placed) on 'good', but the 'good' on which she has several times run well was less firm than the 'good' on she would have run today, an opinion which I can hold thanks to the fact that I generally walk the track when I'm at the races with a horse.

So it was a relatively straightforward decision to withdraw her.  I don't want to sound critical of the ground because I'd have been happy for her to run on it (while knowing that she probably wouldn't have shown her best form) had she not had any alternatives - but, as things are, she has an engagement on Friday at Chepstow, where the ground is almost certain to be on the soft side of good, so it had become a no-brainer to wait for that.  So that was straightforward - while what was very nice was that the horse with whom we'd travelled to the races, the diminutive Lucy Wadham-trained Sir Percy filly La Tiana (pictured), won her race in admirably gritty fashion.

And Yarmouth sounds to have been a satisfactory outing, with Gift Of Silence finishing third and Wasabi fourth, both mares seemingly running with a degree of promise.  I haven't seen the races yet, but I'll settle down to watch them shortly when I eat my dinner.