A pleasing day in the real world

Enjoyable trip to Lingfield today.  Nearly all of its meetings now are Flat, rather than National Hunt; and nearly all of its Flat meetings are AW, rather than turf.  Consequently, it is easy to forget what a terrific National Hunt course it is, and it was a pleasure to go to a jumps meeting there today.  It was even more of a pleasure as Zarosa ran a nice race to finish fourth on her hurdles' debut.  Predictably she tried hard and did her best, and predictably Jack Quinlan rode her very nicely.  And together they did well - particularly at the second hurdle, where the greenness of the favourite made things very hard for her and for him.  But thankfully Jack's quick thinking and Zarosa's self-composure spoiled this (unintentional) attempt to flatten them.

When one's in the first race in the winter it's an early start, but at least we got home in good time (3.30  - in daylight, amazingly).  It was strange to drive away from the racecourse and find the Jeremy Vine show on the radio - that's usually our accompaniment driving to the races, rather than away from them.  So that was today - and it was particularly good to spend it in the real world, rather in the madness at Tattersalls, where none of the purchasers appear to have paid much attention to prize money levels, and people seem to be basing their valuations on the 'greater fool' principle.  A few years ago a Galileo yearling offered by the John Egan-managed Friarstown Stud was bought in (much to John's consternation) at a million guineas.  That was stunning at the time, but now seven-figure buy-backs seem commonplace.

We'll be in the real world again tomorrow, when we head back down to Lingfield (AW this time).  Cottesloe, like Zarosa, is a seasoned and reliable professional, so let's hope for another sound performance.