Full of cold and hope (yet again)

Hopefully this can be a sadness-free chapter.  In fact, it is likely to be an everything-free chapter because I haven't got much to say.  I have a cold and I'm trying to avoid putting either my brain or my body under too much pressure for a couple of days.  Trying without much success, I'd have to say, because there is always plenty to do, both indoors and outside.  Still, at least I can do the outside chores without getting wet as we have had a few dry days.  Tuesday wasn't much fun because we had a bitter wind, but the past two mornings, although colder, have been a joy: frosty, but bright and still, and very scenic.

Tomorrow will be a long day but, thank God, not too long: we will have a runner at an evening meeting, but for us the 6.45 at Chelmsford, which is only 50 miles away and motorway/dual carriageway most of the journey, doesn't present too punishing a schedule.  Heaven Up Here (seen this morning from behind in the second and third photographs) will be running there, our third runner of the year, and I hope that she might have some sort of chance, notwithstanding that she's a five-year-old maiden who has never been placed and who is likely to be one of the outsiders.  She's still lightly raced so we can live in hope - until 6.47 tomorrow, anyway!

I'm delighted that Nicola Currie will be riding her.  We hear plenty about the higher-profile riders at present, and Nicola isn't getting their volume of either rides of success, or their publicity.  But, for me, she's as good as there is, and the bonus from our point of view of the fact that she's not very busy at present (primarily because Jamie Osborne doesn't seem to be having too many runners) is that she's currently easy to book.  So she'll be on board Heaven Up Here tomorrow and then (I hope - this has yet to be confirmed) on board Hidden Pearl at Wolverhampton on Monday.  There is no rider I would leg aboard with the confidence that I will have when I send her out.