Tired

Just about back to normal after the hectic period.  It seems ages ago now - you lose track of time - but I think that starting last week we were at Brighton on Tuesday, Bath on Wednesday, Leicester on Thursday evening, York on Friday (albeit having a day out rather than running a horse, and letting the train take the strain which was a real luxury), Goodwood on Sunday and Bath on Tuesday evening.  Six trips in eight days.  That really took it out of me.  I've been very busy here since then but at least we haven't had the travelling, which has been much needed.  The journeys to and from Bath on Tuesday weren't actually too bad, relatively speaking, but we did have two road closures on the journey home: the M25 and the A1.  Fortunately I knew the areas so the detours which I devised through Watford and Graveley meant that we didn't add too many miles or minutes to the journey - and at that time of night, that was a massive relief.

I think that we've already covered all those runners on this blog bar the two at Bath on Tuesday night.  That was another slightly frustrating outing.  Sacred Sprite started odds-on in the first race, a five-runner apprentices' handicap over two miles and one furlong.  She wasn't an odds-on shot in my eyes as all her worthwhile form was on the AW, while she had run disappointingly on her only previous outing on grass.  As it was, she finished second in as weird a race as you might see.  The margins will explain what I mean about the weirdness: 13 lengths, 15 lengths, 12 lengths, 20 lengths.  A great advertisement for the competitiveness of British racing!

We had planned to track Contingency Fee, who generally races prominently and clearly had a solid chance, but we found ourselves miles behind that horse through much of the race.  Georgia Dobie reckoned that the three up front were going way too fast so sat well back, as did Marco Ghiani on Cotton Club, an eight-year-old who was way better than this grade a couple of years ago and who seems to have been rejuvenated for joining new trainer George Boughey, who has a very good work ethic and who has had a very solid grounding in Hugo Palmer's stable and who looks set to make a big impact having started out a couple of months ago in the Hamilton Road.

Anyway, Georgia and Marco were right.  They were miles behind the others at halfway and miles ahead of them at the finish.  Cotton Club was first and we were second, Cotton Club picking up much more readily in the final half-mile than we did.  Still, although he beat us easily, we beat the rest easily and ran well.  Some people are hard to please, though: I had a few people say to me that Georgia gave Sacred Sprite too much to do, totally ignoring that the horses to whom we supposedly gave too big a lead finished miles behind us, while the only horse to beat us gave the leaders as a big a lead as we did.

Parek (Sussex Girl) finished much closer to the winner than Sacred Sprite did, but that was scant compensation as she only managed to finish fifth, beaten two lengths.  She's so frustrating: again she was too keen, meaning that she didn't have enough left in the closing stages of a race which I believe she could and should have won had she not ruined her own chance by, basically, stupidity.  Still, in the same way that I was very pleased to see George Boughey winning a race at his family's local track so early in his training career (not that George was there to enjoy it as he was at Doncaster's Premier Yearling Sale) I was very pleased for the winning owner/trainer in this race.  James Grassick is one of the nicest men in the game, and I was delighted to be there to salute him when Sophie Ralston brought Valentine Mist home in front at 100/1 to provide him with his first ever winner.

And coming up?  I'll have a late night tomorrow as I'll be in the Sky Sports Racing stoodio for the American racing during the evening and then having a two-hour late-night drive home.  And then I'll be heading to Brighton on Monday with Roy; and to Bath on Wednesday with Hope Is High and Sacred Sprite.  We've had a week of really lovely weather, in the low 30s for the first few days, and, while it won't be that hot, I hope that it will stay fine for us.  Fast ground would suit all of those horses.  I usually say that I'm happy as long as they run well irrespective of whether they actually win, but that philosophy has been wearing a bit thin in recent weeks.  We want a winner!

Otherwise, I heard from the ROA after my last blog post.  I'm pleased to be able to report that the ROA is 100% behind the BHA's bloodstock review, and that the couple of ROA men who had been quoted seeming to say things which made them seem half-hearted at best about the project had merely found themselves victims of a breakdown in communications.  So that's good.  And I'd imagine that I'll be in the BHA's and the Racing Post's good books for rallying to the cause.  Except that. bearing in mind that I referred to Philip Freedman as Mr Freedman, I won't be in the Racing Post's good books, will I?

I hate to drag this up because an off-the-cuff snippet in the paper has been blown up out of all proportion.  But I did think that it was rather sad that the paper's reaction to hearing Cieren Fallon jr refer to his boss on TV as Mr Haggas was to say that this was a problem for racing, rather than to say how refreshing it was to find a young person who had been well enough brought up to be courteous and respectful.  How Cieren refers to his boss tells us nothing about racing in general or about his boss, but merely tells us that Kieren and Julie Fallon have brought their son up very well and that their son is happy to be polite enough to take their lessons on board.

One of the problems of the modern world is that people in general are no longer as respectful of their fellow humans as used to be the case or as ought to be the case.  It's a rare pleasure to find courteous behaviour, and I really can't see that it's a problem for anyone when one finds someone who is polite and respectful.  It's just a matter of personal preference.  I address BHA officials as 'Sir' or 'Madam' but this doesn't mean that the sport is rooted in the Victorian era; it just means that that's how I like to do it.  There are a few with whom I have been on first-name terms for a lot longer than they have been BHA officials, and with those ones I generally use their first names, although I'd still say 'Sir' if we were in the stewards' room together.

There are some whom I would address as 'Sir' on the racecourse but speak to less formally in a social situation; and some whom I would address as 'Sir' wherever I met them. Admittedly one is more likely to speak formally to/about one's elders, but's not specifically an age thing as there are some stipendiary stewards who are probably 25 years younger than I am, but I still call them 'Sir'.  It's not a racing thing as there is no pressure to do so: it's just personal preference as I was brought up to be respectful to people in authority and/or people whom one respects, and there are plenty of situations away from a racing environment where I would adopt the same level of courtesy.  Racing has many problems, but the fact that some (and it is only some) people in the game choose to conduct themselves courteously and respectfully is not one of them.