Tuesday, September 17, 2019

It's good to be busy

Nearing the end of the latest busy period.  I needed the week to recover from the last one, and I'll need the rest of this week to recover from this one.  We had Salisbury Friday evening with The Rocket Park (pictured here pre-race with Hector Crouch) and Dereham who both found the novice company in their race a bit hot but who both performed with a degree of credit even so.  Then we had Hope Is High at Bath on Sunday.  It had been firm ground when she had won at Bath 11 days previously but it was firmer again this time and she didn't run quite so well.  She didn't run badly, mind, finishing mid-field in a very competitive race, but even so it was slightly disappointing to have her lose her record of never having been unplaced at Bath.

I haven't, of course, submitted an inability to handle the ground as a reason for a disappointing run.  I haven't submitted any reason.  Basically on the day she was not good enough, and that requires no explanation.  My feeling that she found the very firm ground to her disadvantage is by the by, and it would be idiotic to submit it as a contributory factor to her finishing unplaced.  The official going description on the day she had won a week and a half previously had been 'firm' and it was still 'firm' on Sunday, so it would be idiotic to start claiming that she didn't handle the firm ground (or Bath).

And now it's Tuesday and we're off to Yarmouth with Konigin.  I can't even say that I'm full of hope, never mind expectation, because it's hard to be hopeful of her after her lack-lustre effort (or lack of effort) at Leicester last time, but she is very well and more than capable of winning today's race if she puts her mind to it.  Let's hope that she does so.  Whatever, I'll sleep well tonight - over and above the schedule outlined above, I had a shift in the Sky Sports Racing stoodio on Saturday evening from 7.00 to 11.45.  It's good to be busy.

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