If at first you don't succeed ...

This great plan which I had for the stable to 'hit the ground running' hasn't really gone as I'd hoped.  We have only run two horses: Das Kapital finished second last at Yarmouth and Parek (Sussex Girl) finished last at Brighton.  That's actually not the end of the world: they're both nice horses, and their non-performances first time out doesn't alter that.  They've both come home sound, and there'll be other days.  So we're now looking at the second wave of the early-season assault: Hope Is High at Chepstow tomorrow and then, I hope, Roy at Brighton on Tuesday and White Valiant at Fontwell on Wednesday.

Most immediately, I have no idea what to expect tomorrow.  We've clearly got a decent chance in a six-horse race, but the ground is an unknown.  I had been trying to avoid running her on soft ground, but the weather is picking up so I've decided to bury my head in the sand and have decided that the ground won't be as soft as advertised.  (Well, that and the fact that we've reached the stage where she's overdue to make her reappearance, and it's a very suitable and not very competitive race). She's only run on ground softer than good twice.

The first time (at Bath in August 2016) she hated it, struggling all the way and only finishing a well-beaten third because of her genuineness and, by Class Six standards, her class.  The second time was her final run last year, when she put in the best performance of her life (so far!).  So let's see what tomorrow will bring.  I think that tomorrow's ground will be the softest ground she's ever run on (a comment which one can probably make about any horse any time that he/she is running in Wales for the first time) but, in this drying weather, it should be much more like the conditions which pertained at Yarmouth than those which pertained that day at Bath (when it had been raining all day and the track was very loose).  As ever, we'll hope for the best but expect nothing.