The Big Storm

Firstly, thanks to Emma for putting up some photos on each of the last two chapters. Excellent pictures, if I say so myself.

Secondly, The Big Storm. Capital 'T', capital 'B', capital 'S'. Yesterday was such a lovely calm spring day that it was impossible to believe that the storm was coming. And yet coming it was, as we were insistently told. Anyway, I was planning to blog yesterday, but I ran out of time; but if I had done so, the title would have been 'The calm before the storm'. And what was the headline on today's Racing Post? Aaghh - took the words right out of my mouth! They'll make a tabloid journo out of me yet. Anyway, The Big Storm hasn't been too bad. When I got up this morning I took the decision that we'd take the prudent option by not exercising any horses, but that might have been a rare example of my being overcautious. Still, the wind was very bad (and the rain very unpleasant) and wind is a danger on any day, but especially on a Monday when the litter blowing around this town can be terrible. Dancing Bloom is one example of a good horse whose career was ruined by spooking at blowing litter - and she was one of the favourites for the 1,000 Guineas when she reared over at the bottom of Long Hill - and any accident that had happened this morning would have been avoidable. So we treated the day like another Sunday, which I was happy to do. At this stage of the year, although we are working the horses towards fitness, there isn't much pressure for time. We don't have any horses within a fortnight of racing (Polychrome should have been, but she's having a few days off with a foot abscess, so she wouldn't have been ridden today come what may). And there are only two that I'm keen to push on as expeditiously as possible (Filemot and Anis Etoile - as they are unraced three-year-olds, I'd like not to linger too much as they have a bit of catching up to do) and Martha and I gave them an easy gallop up Warren Hill yesterday (their first fast work of the year - which went satisfactorily, I'm pleased to report), the reason for this Sunday work-out being that Henry and Rosemary Moszkowicz had called in to see Filemot. So, even with today off (or rather not ridden - the horses all went in the field, so frolicking around there in the wind gave them all a good enough exercise) these two horses have still had the accepted quota of being ridden six days out of seven.

It was amazing that all the racing took place today. We didn't see much from Taunton because the wind had wrecked the satellite link, but when we did get pictures late in the afternoon, what we saw looked like a bog. Plumpton was worse - it's years since I've seen racing in Britain on a course with as much standing water on it as Plumpton had today. There was a pond on the bottom bend about four metres by two, and smaller puddles all the way around. Amazing. It's a feather in the management's cap that the meeting went ahead, because nowadays (ever since the controversial incident about ten years ago at Haydock Park when the senior riders refused to ride, which changed the accepted standard of how much water - ie nowadays virtually none - can be on a track and racing still take place) racing is normally just automatically off if it's this wet. Which I must admit I can't really understand, because I can't see the danger of standing water: I certainly can't see that horses slip when it's genuinely wet - although there is the issue of green horses trying either to swerve round or to jump over the puddles, which admittedly can be rather alarming. Anyway, good on Plumpton, and good on the hoops. Although we must add that this rather evens things up from Plumpton's point of view, because this was the fixture which was needlessly and very irritatingly (from the point of view of this trainer who had two horses declared there) called off two years ago because of an over-reaction to an overnight frost which, according to reliable observers (two sensible and good jockeys, Colin Bolger and Mattie Bachelor, whose opinions I'd trust) was gone by 11 am. So it was nice that they raced today - and nice that Mattie Bachelor rode a double. And it will be even nicer if he can win on Carruthers later in the week.

Yes, The Cheltenham Spring Carnival. I'll be enjoying it from the comfort of my armchair, which was an easy decision. Well, not that easy actually, because Emma enjoys attending it as much as I enjoy watching it at home so, as my ideal scenario would be to enjoy it at home and in Emma's company, I am always faced with the tough decision of which of my desired aspects to eschew. And comfort has won. I've learned from past experience that attending Cheltenham is a very gruelling project, having been very ill after catching a chill there in both 2002 and 2006. In the latter illness I lost a stone in weight and, although there are plenty of people for whom something which could make one lose a stone is a good idea, I am not one of those people. I tend to find myself at a very low ebb physically by the end of the winter, so looking after myself has been the prudent choice. And I made that choice before I knew how very, very bad the weather is likely to be this year.

I must admit that comfort is not my sole consideration in opting to watch the best meeting of the year on television. What I am about to say in this paragraph is worth thinking about, because this is the best advertisement for racehorse ownership you'll ever see. We know that a day at the Festival can be extremely exciting - but after one has been lucky enough to experience the excitement of going to the races to watch one's own horses - whether as owner or trainer, or both as is often the case with me - watching other people's can only be second best, irrespective of the class of the horses involved. For sure there are times when going to the races to watch one's own horses can be a terribly depressing experience and one that is anything but fun, but when things go right there is nothing to match that thrill, and that does rather spoil one for watching other people's horses: however thrilling it will be to watch Kauto Star and Denman battle it out up the hill, it is more exciting still to cheer one's own horse home in a little maiden or handicap at one of the gaffs.

Furthermore, while we won't be having any runners for two or three weeks, we've still got plenty to do with the horses here, and this is a very exciting time of the year as the season approaches. An exciting time of year and a busy and important one too, and I think you'd have to put a big question mark over any trainer who'd prefer to go to the races to watch other people's horses running than to be at home looking after his own charges. For sure everyone needs holidays, and I certainly wouldn't pretend that I never desert my post to take a holiday - I've just had three days off in France - but standing in the wind and the rain at Cheltenham isn't my idea of a holiday; by this stage of the winter, fresh air is definitely a good thing of which I've recently had too much!

Lastly, and I assume most smaller trainers feel the same way, attending big meetings when one doesn't train any horses good enough to run there is quite a galling experience. There are two meetings every year months in advance of which trainers will start working out whether there will be anything in the stable up to running at them: Royal Ascot and Cheltenham. My experience is that one has something suitable to run at Cheltenham once every seven years, and at Royal Ascot zero times every fourteen years. I am aware that the general perception is that the stables who have large strings of good horses do so because the trainers there are better trainers than in the stables which have small strings of inexpensive - and therefore for the most part less talented - animals. Unfortunately for my contentment, I do not share this view, and am instead conceited enough to have a very high opinion of my own skills, often particularly by comparison with those of many of my better patronised colleagues. Sadly, while I am adequate at persuading people who own racehorses on smaller budgets that I am capable of doing a good job of training their stock - and because of this I am blessed with the support of some wonderful patrons whose loyalty I greatly appreciate, because I am aware that one does have to be loyal to support unfashionable stables, because there is constant subliminal pressure to persuade people that the trainers with larger strings are better at their job than those with smaller stables - persuading people with the financial resources to come upon good horses by means other than a lot of skill and a lot of luck to take a similar view is a skill which I have never even begun to master. Quite why this is the case I don't know - but that's obvious, because if I did know the answer to that I'd be more than halfway to solving the problem. So, for me, a visit to stand on the touchline at Cheltenham would be akin to going to a strip club or standing peering over the counter in a bank staring at the money: in all three cases, much as you'd like it to be otherwise, what you're looking at is not yours, you can't touch it and you can't take it home with you. And going to strip clubs and loitering in banks are two pasttimes I prefer to avoid; I leave at least one of them to Ian Watkinson.

So, just in case anyone was wondering, my routine for the next four days will consist of a morning's work and an evening's work but an afternoon off: I'll try to get away with doing nothing in the afternoons between 2.00 and 5.30 other than watch television. And I'll be warm (the boiler broke down again today, would you believe, not that that mattered too much because it's only wet and windy rather than cold, and wind and rain aren't an issue when one's indoors - but after TWO visits from the engineer it's back working again, so fingers crossed it remains that way) and dry and, fingers crossed, I'll have a good view of every stage of the races and I won't miss anything - how often when you come home from the races do you say to yourself, "Gosh,that's annoying: I missed that. I must have got talking to someone. That's a pity: I'd have liked to have seen that"? So if anyone's planning to ring me over the next few afternoons, don't be surprised if there's no answer: it won't mean that there's nobody home.

Oh yes, I had to give four selections in the middle of last week, and they were Kauto Star, Katchit, Tamarinbleu and Ashkazar, although I rather feel that Carruthers should have been in there.