Survived!

I got to the end of the week.  Three evening meetings in four days was a war of attrition (well, if we have a 'war cabinet' in Westminster during peacetime, everything can be a war, can't it?) and the 8.15 at Chepstow on a Friday night was a testing way to finish it.  But we made it.  Not that it was a purposeful trip, mind.  I was silly.  It had been heavy at time of entry and good to soft at declaration-time, but common sense should have told me that in the hottest week of the year, the ground would have been faster than we like.  And as it had been on the soft side so shortly before the race, there was no watering this time.

There was no rain, either.  It was this thunderstorm thing.  Totally unpredictable.  Chepstow was forecast to have heavy thunderstorms on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  They had nothing.  We were forecast a dry night and had spectacular thunderstorms: numerous bolts of lightning, extended thunder, heavy rain.  Paul Evans, husband of trainer Nikki Evans who is at Abergavenny, told me that they were in the same boat, with Carnage in our race.  They were expecting Chepstow to receive the forecast thunderstorms, while they had no rain forecast at home.  They cut a field of hay - and then had two inches of rain overnight!

Anyway, I wish we hadn't run.  The ground was a degree firmer than when he had run there previously and he didn't like it.  (I have not furnished a 'reason for a disappointing run' to the BHA as doing that would, as so often happens, cause more confusion than it would clear up because officially the ground was the same as when he had run there previously, 'good to firm' - which, as we find so often, can mean anything - on each occasion).  Still, he's come home undamaged so we shall regroup and try again somewhere some time in the second half of August.  And I'm regrouping too, which basically involves trying to get some sleep, which is always easier said than done as there's always plenty to do.  Including writing this blog.

This week will be quieter.  Only two entries.  Roy at Yarmouth tomorrow and Loving Pearl at Chelmsford on Saturday.  Tomorrow should be fun as it's usually fun when Roy runs, but it's hard to expect too much.  He's been racing since he was two and he's nine now, and has never won away from Brighton. So a 16-runner race at Yarmouth might be a tall order.  Still, I'm sure he'll do his best.  And he's clean - now, anyway, although he wasn't this afternoon when he was rolling in the mud created by the rain over the weekend.  On a warm, sunny afternoon, though, the hose-pipe and shampoo was always going to get the upper hand!