Overwhelmed

Roy was the winner of the EBN Flat Special Achievement Award at the Racehorse Owners' Association awards-dinner last night.  I'm overwhelmed.  And I'm not saying that lightly: I am overwhelmed.  I was overwhelmed enough that he featured in a line of truly heroic nominees.  I don't have the full list to hand, but it included a Classic winner who represents the best of owners (Billesdon Brook), a Group One winner at Royal Ascot who is a whole story of family heroism and history in himself (Accidental Agent) and Burnt Sugar, who reappeared after a lengthy spell in the wilderness to enjoy a magnificent campaign in the big handicaps.  And Roy won.  Overwhelming.

The only shame was that I wasn't there.  Happily, Roy had plenty of representation: Larry and Iris McCarthy were there, and so was Emma.  I just couldn't have risked going as I'm worn out and I need to take things easy, to make sure that I keep warm and get plenty of sleep, until I'm back to normal.  The two days at the races at the end of the last week started the process of finishing me off, and I just got more worn out over the next few days.  I know that we keep saying that the extensive nature of the fixture list puts the workforce under huge stress, but I suspect that most people think that we're just being difficult.  Admittedly we had a double whammy last week, and that doesn't happen often, but it was a killer.

The double whammy in this case was being in the late race at a late evening meeting and in the first race in an early afternoon meeting the next day: 8.15 at Chelmsford on Thursday and 12.10 at Newbury on Friday.  That means that you don't get much sleep in between times, because obviously there's quite a lot of work to do when one gets home, and then a lot to do before we leave in the morning.  And the roads are just so bad nowadays that that makes things much more stressful than they need to be.  My view is that mobile phones (and satnavs) are to blame as all too many motorists have their attention fixed on anything but the road in front of them, and people keep driving into each other.  And not just amateurs either: professional lorry drivers too.  And for some reason it seems to take hours to get the road clear again.

But this year has been far, far worse than any other year I've known.  We went up to Catterick twice in the autumn.  Both times the A1 was shut - not narrowed but shut - and traditionally I'd be disappointed to get a significant blockage on the A1 twice a year, never mind twice in two trips.  The M11 was blocked on the way to Chelmsford.  The M11, one of the most straightforward roads ins the country, blocked.  Unbelievable.  The M25 near the bottom of the M40 was down from four lanes to one on the way to Newbury.  That added an hour to the journey just in that one queue - and then we were coming home on a Friday afternoon/evening.  Four hours each way, and it's only 120 miles, and motorway nearly all the way.

I'd actually begun to fear that we wouldn't be able to run The Rocket Park (we were fine at Chelmsford as I knew about the blockage so went along some tortuous country roads in the dark - even in retrospect, I couldn't tell you where we went - but there were some non-runners because of the traffic) but we got moving eventually and arrived one and a half hours before the race.  There was a very, very sweet and happy post-script, though.  I dropped off the box which we hire on racedays after we had got home from Newbury.  It wasn't late, maybe 9.00.  Graham Morgan, a lovely man who lives on the property where the boxes live, came out to have a chat.  The next morning, Sarah Buckey, who organises the boxes, rang me rather bashfully, saying:

"Nothing important, but Graham asked me if I'd spoken to you.  When I said that I hadn't as I only got back at 11.00 o'clock last night and have been flat out this morning, he said that you didn't seem yourself when you got home, and asked me to give you a ring to check you're OK."  It was so very, very kind on the part of both of them.  It nearly made me cry.  Anyway, I assured her that all was good, but that I had just been very tired after a late night followed by an early morning and I'd found both drives very stressful with the very bad traffic conditions putting us under pressure for time. (And I felt very awkward saying that because Sarah works unbelievably long hours and does a hell of a lot more box-driving than I do, and I was aware that I was sounding rather pathetic).

Anyway, I had a lot on over the weekend and in the first half of this week, and by Wednesday I was totally shattered.  I went to sleep at 6.30 on Wednesday evening and had eleven hours' sleep and I hoped that that would put me right to go to London on Thursday evening, but I was as listless on Thursday as I had been on Wednesday.  I've learnt from past mistakes that when one starts to feel under the weather, the only sensible option is to do as little as is feasible, try to keep warm, force oneself to eat something - and sleep, sleep, sleep.  And keep on this schedule until one's back to normal.  I'm feeling a bit better today, but if I'd had very little sleep last night instead of a lot, I know that I'd be feeling a hell of a lot worse rather than better.  Notwithstanding that Roy's honour inevitably puts a huge smile on the face.  Overall, though, overwhelmed sums it up perfectly.  Overwhelmed, honoured and very proud.  And just a little tearful.