Not striking when the iron is hot

I'd imagine that we must be top of the 'Hot Trainers' list: three winners from four runners over the past two weeks, a 75% strike-rate.  The iron is clearly hot, so let's strike!  Well, not quite: we almost certainly won't have a runner this week.  I entered Hymn For The Dudes for Redcar on Monday (tomorrow) and Lingfield on Tuesday.  Lingfield looked the better option so, even though we weren't sure to get a run, I eschewed the option of declaring him for Redcar so that 24 hours later I could declare for Lingfield.  That seemed safe enough: there were only 19 entries for the race at Lingfield, with spaces for 12 to run.

We were at the bottom, but even so we didn't need many not to declare.  You've guessed it: 13 were declared so one had to be eliminated, and that one was Hymn For The Dudes.  The only other entrant this week is Indira for Goodwood on Friday, and I'd rather not back her up so quickly after her quick-fire hat-trick.  Four 12-furlong races in two and a half weeks would be a punishing schedule even for a horse as tough as she is, but it's a nice race and a suitable one so I thought that I ought to enter her just in case it attracted a really weak entry.  But it hasn't done that: there are 22 horses entered, so it's fair to say that she won't run, and can instead have another eight days before her next race, which ought to be at Chester 13 days hence.

So it looks like we won't be going anywhere this week, with the next likely outing being to Wetherby with Hymn For The Dudes nine days hence.  That would be a first for me: I've never been to a Flat meeting there.  But no trips to the races this week does not mean that I'm entirely confined to base because I went over to Milton Keynes today for a stint in the ATR studio for the Sunday Forum.  I always enjoy being on that show, but even by the usual standards today's show was fun.  With Matt Chapman chairing the show and Kevin Blake and I being the guests, we found ourselves having a whale of a time.  It would be asking too much to hope that the viewers enjoyed it as much as we did, but if they enjoyed it half as much it will have been a successful programme.