One day at a time

The trip to Wolverhampton on Friday night turned out to be fairly straightforward, even if I was very drowsy at times on the journey home.  I kept the window down so that the icy blast kept me awake, and we got home safely.  And the run was OK.  On the face of it, it was moderate as Kilim only finished 10th of 12, but I wasn't too disheartened.  The main thing was that she needed to show that she had learned to relax in a race. She's bred to stay, but had not previously contested staying races because she was always in too much of a hurry.  But she ran as if she's finally learning to relax, so we can now run her a bit farther, and we can continue to travel hopefully (as always - I'm an optimist by nature!).

Another horse who ran seemingly moderately was our former inmate Cottesloe, who had his first start for Neil Mulholland at Chelmsford on Thursday.  He too didn't run very well, finishing 14th of 15 which was poor for him as he usually runs better than that.  However, it was the shortest race he's ever contested in England (it was a mile, and all his 20 races for this stable were over 10 furlongs or farther) so that's easily excused.  I was assuming that he was running in it solely to have a gallop in preparation for a run tomorrow at Fontwell, where he was entered in what looked a suitable handicap hurdle.  But he isn't declared for that, so we'll have to wait and see what happens next.  He's a lovely horse who ought to continue to hold his form, and who should have a win in him over the winter.

As we're into December we can say that we're in winter.  However, it has been very straightforward so far, all five days of it.  The worst aspect of winter is the wet and the mud, even more so than the cold.  But happily we are still blessed with high pressure so, although we have had to endure overnight frosts, we have been enjoying lovely days with very benign conditions, both overhead and underfoot.  Long may such weather continue - but, of course, it won't, as it has to start raining sometime soon, and once the place becomes a quagmire, it is likely to remain thus for the duration of the winter, unless we have the respite provided by a freeze-up at some point.  But we'll just enjoy the current dry sunny spell while we have it.