Nuts

Too long since I last wrote a chapter on this.  There's been too much going on.  I've been meaning to write something about the GB v. Ire nonsense of the general perception of Cheltenham, and the general view that 'something must be done' about this seeming disaster.  And I will.  But I just haven't yet.  I should, though, just get a couple of paragraphs out tonight as we're going to Doncaster tomorrow, our first trip to the races for three or four weeks or whatever it is, as Cloudy Rose (seen in the first two photographs taken by me, and in the third taken by Emma) will have her third run.  It'll be nice for her going a bit farther as she was outpaced last time, and it will be really, really nice for her running on turf rather than on the sand which was kicked in her face for a circuit of Chelmsford last time - but there's a big 'but'.

The big 'but', of course, is that I seem to have found a race full of blue-bloods, most obviously Ghaiyyath's full-brother.  She'll be cricket-score odds (and I'm meaning Trumper, Hobbs, Bradman or Sobers scores, not the ones which were coming in too frequently during the recent series in India) and realistically she looks to have a strong chance of coming last, but that's by the by.  It's just the usual fact of life that you have to run in three unsuitable races before you are allowed to run in a suitable one, so we have to do it - and tomorrow's race is actually very, very suitable in every respect bar the most important one, ie the strength of the opposition.

I hope that we'll head to Hexham after that, on Wednesday.  It's intermittently quite spring-like down here, but it looks as if it'll still be winter up on the hills in Northumberland next week.  But there's no harm in that as I'd like to take Dear Alix (seen in the third and fourth photographs, taken by Emma - the fact that I'm on him gives the clue that I was not the photographer) somewhere for his debut that provides conditions, including soft ground, which put a much greater emphasis on stamina than speed - and a winter bumper at Hexham should be just the ticket.  I only hope that he gets in because I was non-plussed to see that he is nearly at the top of the elimination list, which isn't what you expect on your debut.  I checked to see if the elimination order had been compiled erroneously, but it hasn't, so there we are.  I think we'll get in but we may not, and it would be annoying to miss out on what looks the perfect time and place to be making his debut thanks to a rule which, to my mind, defies common sense.

Basically, common sense says that in bumpers the elimination would be the same as in Flat maidens: horses who have finished in the frame getting in first (on the Flat we leave out horses who have run often enough to have a handicap mark and make them the first batch to come out, as obviously they have opportunities elsewhere) with unraced horses second in and then the fewest amount of unplaced runs.  Common sense, isn't it?  And that's how it works in Standard Open National Hunt Flat Races and Intermediate Open National Hunt Flat Races - but not for Maiden Open National Hunt Flat Races (which this one is) in which horses who have run without being placed get in ahead of horses who have never run.  So we come out before, say, a horse who has run once and finished tenth.  Nuts.  Let's just hope that we get in and this illogical elimination sequence becomes of academic interest only.