End of a good month

We clocked up a few miles over the previous week or two, but this week has been very easy.  Yarmouth, where we went the other day, is a local home-from-home, while tomorrow's journey will just be home, full stop: Indira runs on the July Course at 5.50.  In years gone by, if your horse had just won at Catterick, the last thing that you'd do would be to run him/her at Newmarket next time.  But things ain't what they used to be: racing has become graded by ratings' bands rather than by status of venue, so you could see a Catterick winner scoring at Newmarket, just as you could see a Terang winner scoring at Flemington.

So let's hope that a Catterick winner can indeed score at Newmarket.  She's in a 9-runner race and she's the third favourite, so she clearly has a chance.  Robert Winston, who won on her last time, won't be at the meeting (and he was kind enough to tell me when I saw him at Lingfield last Friday that he wouldn't be there, coming straight off the fence and saying, "No, I'll be at Goodwood, so you crack on and get a good jockey booked as early as you can", which was extremely helpful, and much appreciated) so she'll have a different good jockey on her this time: Martin Lane, for whom she ran extremely well to finish second at Kempton on her debut last December.

It's been a good July, both for results for the stable (two wins and a handful of minor placings, from not very many runners) and it's been a good July for weather too  (with today's photographs, featuring Saleal, Fen Flyer and Roy, showing that it stayed good right to the end).  We've had abnormally high rainfall, but it's been very warm throughout, with the month apparently ranking among the 10 warmest Julys ever recorded in England.  So, after a good July, let's hope that August can get off to a similarly good start: a warm day ending with a good run from Indira on the July Course.  Well, one can hope, can't one?