Recommended reading

I'm really enjoying Mark Johnston's book. Sorry, we should say Nick Townsend's book about Mark Johnston, but I think everyone knows what we mean. It's just that we shouldn't fail to give Nick Townsend the credit he deserves for creating such a masterpiece. So inspirational. On a par with Brian Mayfield-Smith's 'The Outsider', except even more so. (If that makes sense). I'd recommend it to anyone, and have already recommended it to several. These include Mark Beecroft, former Squeak Fairhurst apprentice who became a battling senior hoop for a while but who is now one of the HRA (ie Jockey Club re-branded, due to be re-re-branded shortly, I think, just to waste a bit more money) roving stable inspectors, who paid us our annual visit today. That was straightforward, because Mark is a decent guy who seems to appreciate it when one is clearly trying to play things more or less by the book, and who appreciates how smaller yards operate, which obviously isn't on the big corporation style of our supposed betters. Mark is mentioned in the book as riding for Mark Johnston in the very early days (I think the phrase "Stuff Mark Beecroft") appears, and I discovered this morning that he didn't know that. A few minutes of rather amusing banter ensued.

Anyway, I'm really just waffling on to put off discussion of our most recent runner, Lady Suffragette, because I'm not very proud of her performance, or of my role in it. She'd run well at Wolverhampton seven days previously, and I took a bit of a leap into the unknown by backing her up over a significantly longer distance yesterday. She'd only run seven days before that, so this was her third race (over 2200m, 2400m and 3200m) in 15 days, which was quite an ask for an immature little filly who's only just turned four. Backing a horse up so quickly one is guessing a bit how well they'll take the race, and this last time she didn't fare nearly as well as the previous time. Admittedly she did fall victim of the usual AW sting, which happens most frequently at Lingfield but isn't unknown at Wolverhampton, of sitting immediately behind the leader on the rail, and finding when the leader starts to weaken halfway through the final circuit that one can't pull out, so that the whole field streams past on one's outside while one drops back to last on the bridle. I remember Critical Stage once going round Lingfield like that under a motionless Richard Hughes and finishing a promising and unextended second last. Lady Suffragette actually didn't really get going much again once she did get room - she probably didn't make much effort to do so, because she must have realised she was completely out of the race by that time, and she wasn't blowing much at all afterwards - and I think it would be wrong just to say that she didn't get the run of the race. She pulled far too fiercely early on, and basically I think I got things all wrong. I thought she was in the right shape, physically and mentally, to run well in the right race on the right day, but basically I think that just about every part of that was a misconception. At least she's my own horse, so I don't have to apologise to anyone. One learns by one's mistakes, so it's back to square one with her, and hopefully I'll have her better prepared when next she does step out, which won't be in the next few weeks. We've got Carol back now, thank God - it was great to have her helping us to catch up some lost time with a few backs last Tuesday - and step one in Lady Suffragette's rehabilitation will be a good check-over from Carol tomorrow.

Backs aren't the only worry just now, because we have a few horses under the weather. I don't actually mind that if they're the ones who are at the early stages of their preparation, because it doesn't do them any harm to have a cold when they are a few months away for a run, as it just means that they build up a few antibodies which will come in handy later on. So we've had a few coughs and dirty noses (and eyes now that the patients are having potassium iodide added to their feed, which seems to boost the immune system, and whose use is often followed by a weeping eye for a few days) and a couple of temperatures, but nothing to worry about. The only irritating thing is that Mattie Stokes has been one of the victims, and he was one horse who was just entering strong work. But there's no point in not acknowledging illness, and rest is the only cure, so one just has to acknowledge the situation and let nature take its course.

I can't sign off without eulogising about lovely Ashley Brook, whose first up win was the highlight of a great day's televised racing at Cheltenham on Saturday. Full marks to his trainer Kevin Bishop for having him ready to put in such a performance resuming after such a long and injury-induced layoff. Knee injuries are often the hardest to work around, particularly with a stayer, so that was excellent. I really enjoyed watching that. In the book, Mark Johnston, corrrectly, points out how absurd the Greatest Training Performance is, but even so Kevin Bishop's effort there should make it to some sort of list. But as for Problemwalrus nominating Norman Williamson for Greatest Ride for falling off something - dear, oh dear. Still, at least he didn't nominate Sean Fox for falling off the horse (was it called Ice Saint?) at Fontwell.

Speaking of which, we paid Barbara Lockhart-Smith a visit for lunch today over at Frinton, which was a brahmafest in itself. (The connection, in case you are wondering, is that as one enters her house, there's a photo of some steeplechaser she trained winning at Fontwell under Richard Pitman c.1972). It really was brahmae galore, but to describe it properly would take up too much book-reading time, so I'll just say that she's still going strong.