A joyous weekend

I hope that this chapter might become well illustrated, because there are a few shots on my camera which would fit well with it. Rather than hoping, though, I ought to pull my finger out and learn how to download and then upload photographs. I will, I expect, manana.

The frequency of my posting is not increasing/improving. My excuse this time is that we were away for three days, which of course means more than three blogless days, because I spend at least as much time beforehand and afterwards catching up on things more crucial than rambling away on this toy. The reason for our absence was to attend the wedding near Deauville of Lisa-Jane Moeran and Francis Graffard, two of our erstwhile colleagues in the Leslie Harrison Memorial Pedigree Club. Many of you might have come across one or other of them in Britain in their former roles as Darley nomination saleswoman and Darley racing manager respectively, although now that they have moved to Francis' homeland Lisa-Jane is a Darley racing manager and Francis is one of Alain de Royer-Dupre's assistants. The arrival of an invitation to a wedding does not automatically fill me with glee - I think that wedding-attending tends often to hold more appeal to sheilaghs, and to single men - but this was one on whose guest-list I was really, really pleased to find my name. Lisa-Jane and Francis are not only two of the nicest and most honourable people whom I know, but they are also a couple perfectly suited to one another, so it was a genuine pleasure to be honoured with an invitation to share in their big day.

The wedding duly proved to be a very joyous occasion. I'm sure that everyone present shared my view of being happy on behalf of both the bride and the groom for the fact that each was marrying the other, and they themselves were clearly very happy. The sun shone, there were smiles and laughs galore - and, last but not least, we were treated to superb hospitality in the Pressoir de Tourgeville, where the reception came in the form of a dinner on Saturday evening and a lunch on Sunday. These featured lovely food and wine, plus some great nosing around by their Jack Russell terrier Nelson and some virtuoso dancing by the Frenchmen whenever the music of the late Claude Francois came on the disco.

It is usual at weddings that someone, usually the bride, arrives late. This proved indeed to be the case this time, as Lisa-Jane walked into the church at around 4.15, the ceremony having been due to start at 4.00. What caused her lateness is not clear, although it is fair to assume that it was not the having of second thoughts. Remarkably, she was not the latest: but for the ceremony running behind time because of the bride's late arrival, our friend (and Lisa-Jane's former colleague) Benoit Jeffroy would have missed it altogether, because he stole into the church at around 4.50 just as the register was being signed. For anyone who knows Benoit, this is hard to believe, because he is a very conscientious and correct young man, the last person one would expect to be so late. Predictably, it turned out that Benoit's time-keeping had been the victim of his innate willingness to please.

The wedding day had started badly for Benoit, as on Saturday morning he had awoken after a late night to the recollection of too much calvados having been drunk, and of 100 Euros having been lost at the casino. (Benoit can actually console himself with the thought that, in one sense, he'd actually only ended up 45 Euros down on the night: for some reason he had been able to persuade Tattersalls' roving representative that he was more important than he actually is, and had thus had his dinner paid for, leaving himself 55 Euros better off than he might have expected to be). With the wedding to look forward to, Benoit, who had spent all week inspecting Darley-sired foals on behalf of his employers, was possibly not completely gruntled to take a telephone call in the morning asking him to inspect another foal. Having hoped that this could take place late morning, he was slightly alarmed to find that it had to happen at 2pm, and in a place over an hour's drive from Houlgate, the site of the wedding (which was due to start at 4.00). Things got even worse when Benoit arrived at the stud: he found that his hosts were so pleased to welcome their visitor that they had prepared all the horses on the property, and not just the one foal, for him to see. Furthermore, they had gathered all the family to meet the visitor, had prepared afternoon tea, and had dusted off their Bobinski Tables to help the flow of the pedigree discussions which would be sure to ensue! Only Benoit, with his instinctive friendliness and obliging nature, could have found himself in this position. So, inevitably, the time when he really ought to have been en route to the church had been and gone, and Benoit was drinking yet another cup of coffee and eating yet another slice of cake, perusing a Bobinski Table and enjoying - as much as you can enjoy doing something when you know that you really ought to be elsewhere - an in-depth analysis of the blood-lines of the horses on the property. Of course, there was nothing Benoit would have enjoyed more than to stay up until the small hours discussing pedigrees with his new-found friends, but he finally managed to tear himself away at 3.30 - with the cheery admonition of his host, "And don't be late for this wedding, now!", ringing in his ears. Still, I am sure Benoit won't be long in returning, and he'll make sure that he has plenty of time on the next occasion!

Happily, we ourselves did some horse-inspection while we were in Normandy. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with our friend Alix Choppin at her family's lovely farm-house, whence we set off on Saturday morning for two studs, Haras du Logis and Haras de la Cauviniere. My mare Minnie's Mystery, plus her yearling Grey Panel and her Gold Away colt foal, reside at the latter property, and she had visited the first-named the previous week to be covered by Layman. I'd never seen Layman previously, so was delighted to inspect him, finding myself even more pleased than I had been with the thought that Minnie's might be in foal to him - so let's hope that she turns out to have conceived! The other stallions which we were shown by the stud's owner Julian Ince were King's Best (who looked great), Country Reel (very solid and muscular in the archetypal sprinting stallion mould), Slickly (lovely, nearly white now), Sulamani (one of my all-time favourite horses, recently arrived back in France after a tortuous journey from South America, and looking a lot less imposing than when I'd last seen him 26 months previously) and Librettist (a horse by whom I have never been particularly enthused); and we also saw the 1998 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Sagamix in his paddock from a distance.

I was similarly pleased with what I saw at Haras de la Cauviniere. Minnie's is in very safe hands in the care of Sylvain and Elisabeth Vidal at this lovely property. She was looking very content with her foal, who is now three months old having been born on Australia Day (26th January). This foal seems to be completely correct, which is a miracle as Minnie's Mystery's conformation is not perfect, and neither is that of the foal's sire Gold Away. He looks to be potentially a very nice horse (fingers crossed). Grey Panel is less well conformed, emulating his mother in having an unstraight off fore leg - but that fault neither slowed her down nor prevented her from being raced thoroughly over several years, so that's nothing to be concerned about. Otherwise, he's a nice horse, and having him in the stable by the end of the year is a prospect to cherish. Grey Panel is, like his mother, grey, and I think that the foal will be grey too: he was born chestnut, like his father, but he seems now to have some grey hairs around his eyes. So that's great: the mare has been at stud for two seasons, and has two nice colt foals. This year she didn't come into season for quite a long time after foaling, but she finally did so a couple of weeks ago; so she's now been covered by the lovely Layman, and we'll find out in a week or so whether she has conceived. I hope that she has.