It's hard to fathom why the ground is so bad at racecourses nowadays. The Heath is never watered, and it is still good ground on the Heath, despite this extended spell of good weather. We had Magic Ice, Galette Des Rois and Hymn For The Dudes galloping on the grass yesterday, and I galloped Roy Rocket on the grass this morning (well, afternoon, as it as after noon by the time that he worked) and the ground was grand, genuinely good ground. But Bath is seemingly significantly firmer, and I can't believe that we've had wetter conditions here than they have had in Wessex, because it has been lovely here.
The Rowley Mile was clearly fairly firm today (the Racing UK replays are on the TV as I write, and I've just heard Richard Hughes suggest that the ground was "firm"). So what is going wrong? Over-use, I suppose. The ground on the Heath is used sparingly, mainly because there is plenty of it - and the AW canters and gallops take most off the pressure of it anyway - but racecourses get so much hammer nowadays that the ground suffers so much more wear and tear. And it's the wear and tear which turns lovely turf into a rough and loose surface which gets much wetter in wet times and much drier in dry times. A racecourse which might have had eight days of racing per year a generation ago now has 18 - and that's all that one needs to say.
Anyway, overall it's nice to be worrying about firm ground on the 16th April, notwithstanding the occasional inconvenience. We've had unseasonably lovely weather - yesterday, all 22 degrees of it, in particular one could have called a lovely summer's day, rather than a lovely spring day, which was blissful - and that's great. I'm sure that the ground down the hill at Brighton on Tuesday might be fairly bracing, but Roy and Magic Ice get the chance to run off their correct marks (well, almost) so that's too good an opening to turn to down. I did say in a previous chapter that I wouldn't even enter Magic Ice at Brighton; but she's entered, and at present she is an intended runner. I might end up not throwing caution to the winds with her - but, God willing, Roy can run there come what may. He's so odd that he may turn out to love it!
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