Trying to make plans

That was a very pleasant trip to Brighton on Tuesday.  Even acknowledging that things hadn't really gone Roy's way in his previous races this year, it has still been hard to swallow that his runs had appeared slightly lack-lustre.  This was having me scratching my head as I was sure that he was still in very good shape.  It was a great relief, then, to see him running a very competitive race again.  Coming from the back in what for Brighton was a fairly big field was always unlikely to be straightforward, and the leaders did get away mid-race at a time when the horses immediately ahead of him didn't seem in so much of a hurry.  But he ran on very strongly to finish third.  Very pleasing.

The disappointing thing is that he won't be running at Brighton again for a while.  There are two meetings in July but unfortunately there isn't a suitable race for him at either.  One of them has three middle-distances races, but even that day has nothing for him: one is a maiden race, one is for three-year-olds only and one is too high a grade.  I wasn't too fussed because I just assumed that we would be returning there during the three-day Festival early in August.  Not so, unfortunately!  The race which he won last year, which is - or, rather, was - effectively a Brighton Cup consolation, is now for three-year-olds only.

That's such a shame.  I suppose he could run in the Brighton Cup if he won one (or, more likely, two) races (elsewhere, obviously) in July, but at present he'd be too far out of the handicap to make that a realistic option.  And, realistically, his rating is unlikely to rise that much for having one or two runs elsewhere in July.  So his next trip to Brighton is likely to be on 20th August.  In the interim he can go to Lingfield (grass, not AW) in 12 days' time, which is nice as it's over two miles; often one watches him over 12 furlongs at Brighton and muses that it would be nice to see him run over farther, but at Brighton that isn't an option as a mile and a half is as long as they go, the first four furlongs of the former two-mile course having been sold to the East Brighton Golf Club decades ago.  It's harder to make up ground at Lingfield than at Brighton, but at least he'll (presumably) handle the run down the hill and around the bend.

Before then we should be heading to Brighton on Tuesday with Sussex Girl and Solitary Sister.  Sussex Girl is on a disappointingly long losing run now and she can be very frustrating, but this looks like a suitable race.  I'm not sure that ideally I'd be sending Solitary Sister to Brighton, and I know that ideally I wouldn't be running them both in the same race, but it's proving hard to get Solitary Sister into a race.  She was declared for a race at Yarmouth today which had more horses eliminated than got a run (16 got a run, 18 were eliminated) and she looks long odds-on to be eliminated from Wolverhampton on Monday. So Tuesday it will very likely be.  (Not, of course, that she's sure to get in there, but I think that she will).