Hopes for Hope

Our trip to Warwick on Wednesday with Roy was very special indeed.  He ran well, finishing second, and all in all it was a day very much to remember.  Disappointingly, things took a turn for the worse afterwards and I was forced to conclude that Kryptos, who had been pencilled in to resume at Chester tomorrow, was not ready to run.  However, we'll still be going there as Hope Is High is running.  This was something of a last-minute plan.  She ran at Newmarket eight days ago (Thursday 17th May) and my initial plan was that her next race would be at Wetherby on June 6th.

However, I was trotting along next to her on Monday morning and she looked so well - clearly having come out of the race very well and, to my eyes, having tightened up for it - that I thought that I might as well look to see if there was anything sooner than that.  There was: in five days' time (ie tomorrow) at Chester, and the race was set to close in a couple of hours' time.  So I entered her, and she's running.  It's a better race than the two in which she has just been unplaced.  But set against that is that she's racing off a lower rating (75 rather than 77) and will only have a featherweight (8 stone 2lb) whereas she carried 9 stone 7lb at Newmarket and 9 stone 1lb at Chepstow.  And I think that she has improved too. So she'll run.

She's an 18/1 chance so isn't an obvious winner, and she isn't my idea of the most likely winner.  I thought that Redicean, who was my pick in the Triumph Hurdle, is the most likely winner; and I see that he's favourite, so I'm clearly not alone there.  But she has a chance (even if her double-figure draw will make it hard for Nicola to secure a 'dream run' on her) and it's a nice race at a nice racecourse to have a crack at.  If it doesn't work out, we can lower our sights again the next time.  I'll adopt my preferred policy of hoping for the best but expecting nothing, and I'll try to enjoy the day.