Let's see what happens

We're on weather watch again. (Which is good because, as regular readers of this blog might have deduced, I like weather). I took Silken Thoughts out from Sandown last week because of the wet track, so I'm hoping that I don't have to do the same again at Lingfield on Thursday. But, so far, so good. I don't ride her very often, but I did yesterday - and when I did, we were greeted by the king of morning which one would think would be presaging a dry week, as the photograph of her ears overlooking the Severals indicates. We passed one of Newmarket's more notable three-year-olds, Carlton House, a few minutes later, and, although we were in the shade of some trees, he seemed to be coming out of a blinding eastern morning sky (also pictured). And when the sun got up properly, the sky was just ever so blue, as the third photograph, of some of Jeremy Noseda's horses meandering into view shows. Sunday had been a lovely day too, with a really warm and sunny afternoon for the Family Funday which had been organised on the Severals, which was great because the lovely weather helped to ensure that plenty of money was raised for charity and plenty of fun was had by plenty of people (and dogs - including Gus). But the fact that the week started in such idyllic fashion doesn't of course mean that it will continue as such - and the fact that there were already some clouds appearing by the time that Batgirl gazed over the Heath during the last lot of yesterday morning (as seen in the fourth photograph), one could guess that things were going to change. We've already had a lot of rain, from Monday night onwards, and there is surely more to come. However, Lingfield is sticking to its good to firm story - and still watering, apparently, which is either very encouraging or very worrying, depending on which way you look at it - so fingers crossed we'll be OK on Thursday (with this chapter being written on Tuesday evening). Between then and now we have Chepstow, where the weather is less important from our point of view: as First Pressing has never yet run well on any going, one can't say that such-and-such is her ground. However, she has quite an extravagent action and hits the ground quite hard, so a small amount of cut in the ground probably wouldn't go amiss. The track, hard though this is to believe from this side of the country, has been upgraded in the past 24 hours to 'good, good to firm in places' - and if it remains thus it's hard to see that any horse could have any real excuses on that account. She's shown very little on the racecourse so far but I believe that she is capable of raising her game (which goes without saying, really, as the fact that she is still in training implies that I believe her capable of better) so let's hope that she can start doing that tomorrow. Whatever happens, we'll be wiser for our trip to Chepstow, even if not necessarily more successful.