Hope

The clocks changed last night, one of the best nights of the year with its extra hour.  Still, the extra hour was needed as the change of the clocks has coincided with the change from unseasonably good weather to conditions more in keeping with the season.  Yesterday was very cold with a biting northerly wind.  But at least it was dry.  We then had 7mm of rain overnight, which made today bleaker, even though it felt less cold as the wind had dropped.  Any, winter it is now, and winter is the time of needing plenty of sleep.

Two runners coming up: Hope Is High at Chelmsford tomorrow and Das Kapital at Catterick on Tuesday.  I'd hope that Hope will have a decent chance, although the AW is a step into the unknown with her (notwithstanding that she did have a run at Newcastle as a three-year-old) while Chelmsford is the bogiest of our bogey courses: I don't think that I've ever trained a runner who finished in the first three there.  Even Indira, who always ran well, was only fifth when we took her to Chelmsford.  So I just assume that we'll be disappointed on the very rare occasions when we venture there.  Still, this unblemised run of unplaced horses has to be broken some time. Doesn't it?

I was sort of working on the assumption that Das Kapital's run at Pontefract six days ago was going to be his last race of the season.  But he ran well enough there to show that he's in very good form; he's come out of the race very well; and this race at Catterick looks very suitable.  So it makes sense to run.  In an ideal world I might have given him slightly longer between races, but this isn't an ideal world and one very rarely has options exactly as one would like them.  Anyway, I'm happy to run, and hoping that he'll run well.  So let's hope that we have two good runs.  We'll see.