Hoping for better luck tomorrow ...

Our trip to Lingfield last Friday was rather frustrating.  It could have been worse, I suppose, because we did at least get there, albeit after a journey an hour longer than it would have been, granted normal traffic conditions.  As it was, though, on maybe the busiest day of the year on the roads (the first Friday afternoon of the school summer holidays, on a lovely day) getting there in good time, albeit after a delay, was fine.  As was the fact that no lives were lost.  But it was just very frustrating, seeing Wasabi again too far back in a falsely run race.

This was no fault of her jockey, who was intent on making sure that she was close to the lead all the way, because we were agreed in advance that a falsely run race was likely, and that racing prominently was definitely the right thing to do.  However, she missed the break, and that was that.  Had she been drawn wide, that wouldn't have been a problem.  But, as it was, she was drawn low and consequently found herself locked away on the inside towards the rear, with room to manouevre until the leaders starting sprinting away from her in the final quarter of the race.

Ah well ... The quidnuncs tend to note the scratching of a horse drawn wide and nod their heads sagely; but if I were in a 10-runner race at Lingfield, I'd take gates nine or ten ahead of one or two any time.  So that was that.  And now, after a weekend of yet more glorious weather (as two photographs taken yesterday illustrate) at the end of a lovely week, we're off to Yarmouth tomorrow with what I hope should be two good chances.  Gift Of Silence runs in the first race and Roy Rocket runs in the last; and, while I'm sure that neither will start favourite, both should be very competitive.

You can see both horses in the second of yesterday's photographs (ie the one in the third paragraph) as Gift Of Silence is the dark grey in the middle, while Roy is the near-white horse on the right.  (The other grey, on the left, is Grey Poppett, who is seen in the previous paragraph trying to work out why even the water-hole has dried up).  Roy will be similarly white again come 5.30 tomorrow afternoon, but as of now he's a very different hue: we had rain during the night and into the morning (which was a shock, but at least it was still very warm) and he certainly made the most of that when he went out into the field this afternoon, as you can see.