A good outing

I'm pleased to say that yesterday's trip to Kempton went very well indeed. My hopes that Kadouchski would get a fair bit nearer to Kavaloti (as compared to when they had been third and second respectively over course and distance seven days previously, split by four and a half lengths) proved well founded: Kadou reduced the deficit by three lengths. And again they came home one after the other, Kavaloti (who started the 11/10 favourite, incidentally, with Kadou a 10/1 shot) in first and Kadou in second. In fact, for a few strides it looked not merely as if Kadou would be even closer than that, but as if he might actually win. Hannah rode him very well. I'd given her some rough guidelines in advance and had thrown in the observation that George Baker was on her principal danger; so if possible it might be an idea just to try to keep an eye on George throughout the race - and she proceeded to stalk George the whole way round. Which, of course, is a recipe for a good ride, because George is a master tactician who is usually in a sensible place in a race; so this meant that Hannah was too. She actually was able to move Kadou up alongside George with a furlong to go, thus giving him every chance to win, but sadly Kavaloti was just too good and duly pulled away again the final 150m to win going away. But basically I just came away very pleased with and proud of both horse and rider. And I am also pleased (as you might be able to work out from the amount of illustrations which accompany this paragraph) with my photo-essay of the ride, with before, during and after pictures. You'd never guess from all the photographs that I managed to take that I led the horse up! It was a really nice evening down there. There had evidently been heavy rain before we got there because there were a lot of deep puddles on the tarmac, but that all cleared away to leave us with a lovely evening at the races. Which was doubly welcome: not only because it is, obviously, nicer to be at the races in sunshine than in rain, but also for the fact that we have Silken Thoughts in at Lingfield on Saturday and, after her feeble run in the swamp at Chepstow last time, you can understand that I don't really want much rain in the south London hinterland during the second half of this week. Anyway, that was Kempton last night: a good outing.

Let's hope that it's a good outing tomorrow too. Must You Go (aka Nigel) runs at Market Rasen in the bumper. He's owned by Aisling's friend John Halley, a vet in Co. Tipperary, and John ran him in a couple of Irish point-to-points earlier this year. That wasn't a particularly successful plan, but John reckoned that bumpers might show the horse in a better light - and as there is an argument to say that there is more scope for success in bumpers in the UK than in Ireland, Nigel (pictured with Aisling walking back down from Bury Hill a month or so ago) crossed the water a while back and joined this stable. While his credentials on paper are not glaringly obvious, he should perform with credit - not least because he has one of the best credentials of all, being a son of one of my favourite stallions, Hernando (pictured at his home at Lanwades Stud last November, with his mate Selkirk keeping an eye on him) who has been a real friend to this stable by siring both Ethics Girl and Alcalde. Market Rasen is always a nice track to visit, so I'm looking forward to taking a nice horse there tomorrow. I haven't quite worked out the day's arrangements yet, but the icing on the cake will be if I take a nice dog with me too: Gus is really getting into this race-going thing. He had a mighty time again at Kempton last night. He really enjoys the travelling, the being there, and (particularly) the being made a fuss of by anyone and everyone. We had a good walk over to the back straight yesterday evening before racing and Gus seemed happy with the progress being made in the annual summer re-building of the fences. I probably should take him to Market Rasen tomorrow just so that he can cast his eye over things there too.