This is not a tipping column

I don't like to blow my own trumpet (which is a statement which is always used as a lie, because it is invariably followed by an example of voluntary blowing of one's own trumpet) and this column is not meant to be a tipping column, but it could be said that I have tipped a long-priced winner.  I haven't looked back to see exactly what I wrote, but I recall that in a recent chapter I suggested that Molly Presland might be the next apprentice in Newmarket to ride his/her first winner.  Well, I was delighted to see that she did just that the other day, winning on 28/1 shot Lilkian, owned by Derek Lovatt and trained by her boss Sean Keightley, at Chelmsford on Saturday night.  That was a very good result.

You don't need to have seen Molly ride to know that she's very competent.  Sean doesn't suffer fools, so the fact that he is putting her up is all that one needs to know.  His stable remains in great form, which again is something that is very good to see.  Other recent cases of well-deserved success coming from yards in Hamilton Road have included Newmarket's newest trainer, Terry Kent, winning a nursery at the Ebor Meeting with Ataser; and Peter Charalambous winning at Newmarket with his homebred debutant Apollo One and then having the colt finish third in the Solario Stakes at Sandown on Saturday.

After our good results the previous week, we couldn't make the scoreboard again last week but Hidden Pearl ran respectably at Bath, well ridden by Antonia Peck.  It was a rough race and the filly consequently got a bit fired up by all that was going on around her on the first turn (although, according to the stewards' report, no one did anything wrong, so that's OK) and then understandably got tired in the closing stages on the unseasonably testing ground, which had absorbed a huge amount of rain in the run-up to the meeting.  She lost a few places in the final furlong and had nothing to show for a brave effort, but she showed up well and did her best, and that's fine by me.

The rain over on that side of the country was rather hard to swallow.  I could have done with less of it at Bath but I was very happy to hear that plenty was falling at Chepstow as we wanted to take Das Kapital back there eight days after his easy win on the soft ground that he loves.  You can imagine how put out I was, therefore, when the meeting was called off four days in advance of the race because the ground had turned 'heavy, waterlogged in places'.  It is very hard to believe that it would have been unraceable yesterday, but I can understand the rush to call the meeting off in time to transfer it to Wolverhampton, where the chances of the track being unraceable were even less than they would have been at Chepstow.

I'm not sure what to expect at Yarmouth tomorrow, where the ground is currently good to firm.  It's a lovely warm, sunny, still evening, but we are assured that Storm Francis is coming in overnight and will dump a large volume of water all over East Anglia, which includes both Newmarket and Yarmouth.  So I'm not sure what to expect the ground to be there tomorrow evening; and I'm not sure what to expect from The Simple Truth (seen here galloping with Jana on the Al Bahathri yesterday morning) who had been getting a bit better each time prior to a very poor run last time.  But that's OK - as mentioned about, this isn't a tipping column.