All roads to lead to Mildenhall

Well, it's been a couple of interesting days. Enjoyable in parts too. It's hard to know which way the weather is going. The Jockey Club seem sure that we are in for a nice week as over the weekend they cut the grass which had been left to grow in the middle of Bury Hill to become a hay crop. Let's hope that they are right and we get a warm, dry week, at the end of which they grass will be nicely dried and ready to be baled into hay. Here's the grass lying, slowly turning into hay, soon after sunrise yesterday (not that you can see the lines of it that well as the sun still isn't too far over the horizon). It was actually a lovely morning an hour or two later, as this second photograph, of the sun blasting through the still-relatively-young cherry and silver birch trees on the Severals, with some of Roger Varian's horses walking around the inner ring. Sadly, those first few hours of Monday have been the best of the week so far, so we'll just have to take it a day at a time in seeing whether the summer holidays really are going to be summery.

The afternoon at Yarmouth was very pleasant yesterday, notwithstanding the lack of sun and lack of victory. Batgirl didn't win, but she still ran very creditably: third, beaten 1.25 lengths and a nose. You might think that third in five-runner race isn't much to write home about, but it was a competitive race in that four of the five were genuine chances - and any race over seven furlongs at Yarmouth in which one finishes ahead of the admirable Rough Rock (who finished fourth, two lengths behind Batgirl) represents a good effort. So that was fine, and again I came away very happy with the conscientious service given by Pat Cosgrave. And, although I say that there was no victory at Yarmouth (apart from the best-turned-out prize, which was a great effort by Hannah, and an achievement I think unprecedented in the history of this stable!) there was plenty of victory at Yarmouth for Exeter Road: Charlie McBride took two horses there and came home with two winners, which was a great achievement. Amoya, ridden a treat by Adam Beschizza, made all the running to win our race, and an hour earlier the debutante Speedi Mouse had made a winning debut in the seller, ridden by another very good young rider, Martin Lane. I'd say that this photograph of her pulling up after the line tells us why she got her name: Martin is far from a giant, but she certainly makes him look like one!

I had some time to kill at Yarmouth yesterday, and on the journey; so I spent it making the preparations for my trip to FHDC HQ in Mildenhall today to restate Newmarket Town Council's position (steadfastly opposed) on the Hatchfield Farm development, the appeal against whose rejection is currently being held. Anyway, now I've done that - and all I can say is that I don't want ever to be on trial! It was bad enough just facing the challenges from Lord Derby's QC Mr Boyle in this supposedly relatively pressure-free environment. I'd just about had enough when he went down a line of questioning about whether I really was representing NTC (which I'd said umpteen times that I was), about who had authorized me, and did I have documentary evidence that I had NTC's authority, and could I produce such documentary evidence (which, of course, is easy enough, as it's just a case of bringing along the minutes of the D&P Committee Meeting of 6th June, at which I was appointed NTC's spokesman - but, of course, it had never crossed my mind to bring these along, as I hadn't realised that I was effectively to be put on trial and that I was to be suspected of being some Walter Mitty who had just wandered in off the street with plans to derail the farrago by posing as a NTC representative). Anyway, I held my tongue while the urge to shout, "I'm not f**king lying, you know" was getting ever stronger, so no harm was done. And, still, I gather that I got off lightly compared to John Gosden, who seemingly was treated like the artful dodger caught red-handed last week. Keen as I was at the outset to see Lord Derby's appeal thrown out, I'm even keener now that I've been acquainted with the company which he choses to keep.