Life in the Fast Lane…nearly!
I fully admit that good news travels fast, while it always takes that bit longer for depressing or unfortunate news to filter through. When a trainer has had seven seconds since his last winner, it is a temptation to avoid the key-board purely because it is a struggle to write positively when those much-referred to ‘dice’ just don’t seem to ‘roll’ the right way.
The horses have done plenty of work on the All-Weather, but as with most yards we have not been able to get on the grass gallops or school at anything other than ‘snails-pace’ until last weekend. Despite doing all we could, most of our runners have needed their first runs.
Then you get the frustration of COPPERFACEJACK doing everything right but finishing second three times in a row. HOLLOW BAY leads everywhere except on the line at Ludlow and then the heavens open an hour before her much-awaited chase debut, scuppering her chances at Warwick. GWAFA over-jumps at the second hurdle at Kempton and in ‘saving himself’ from falling, stumbles and pulls a tiny sliver of bone off his joint, enforcing a Winter rest. NEW AGENDA has run with fair credit to be second in a Listed hurdle race and then subsequently fourth in another. I think he struggles to stay 2m. at the moment and so reverts to the flat later this week at Wolverhampton. He is still inexperienced and a bit ‘bull-headed’, so we are hopeful that he will stay when he grows up and relaxes a bit more. RED COSSACK ran his best race to finish second at Kempton and should have a good shot at going one better back at the track on 30th Nov… ROYAL DEBUTANTE did little wrong, except for may be giving the winner a ‘little too much rope’ at Huntingdon and finishing (yes) second last Saturday, but she is an improving filly who should really win next time.
KERRERA runs at Wolverhampton on Wednesday and she looks to have gently kept improving, but may have an unraced one of Roger Varian’s in her way. As mentioned, NEW AGENDA goes to Wolverhampton on Friday with a good chance over 1m+. ORCHARD BOY showed that schooling very well on the excellent All-Weather schooling ground that The Jockey Club provide in Lambourn is not quite enough match-practice, as he was awkward and ‘green’ in his chasing debut at Sandown. He may run back over hurdles at Leicester on Sunday, where he has run very well before.
Next week could be busy and watch out for VERY LIVE, as he has definitely improved from last season and he’ll love the conditions at Lingfield.
We have a debutante novice hurdler in SPEEDY RUNAWAY, who is beginning to get the message nicely at home. COSMIC DIAMOND will make her comeback after a pelvic injury in the Spring and watch out for BLUE REVELATION, who I think is very well-named at Lingfield on 30th Nov…
Because our new conditional jockey Fergus Gregory is away in Newmarket this week we have been short of riders, so The Trainer has ridden five lots for the last couple of days. Now as my Dad would say, ‘he may be fat and frightened’, but the feeling a good horse gives you does not disappear, so unless I’m a muppet, BLUE REVELATION is a good horse. Enough said.
A true tale from Saturday. Driving around Towcester on the way to Huntingdon, I start to get hounded by this car behind me. He’s flashing his lights and is just about in the boot of my car, but there is a solid line of traffic on my left and I can do nothing to let him by. As he continues to crawl all over me, I just gently touch the brakes and then quicken away. The perfect reaction, he slams his brakes on, his passenger’s phone flies around and he shakes his fag-holding fist. We pull up upsides at the lights and he winds his passenger window down to give me all sorts of verbal; ‘ You could of f****** killed me you lunatic’ and plenty more, so I just mentioned about being too close, stopping distances and the fact that he was the one who was more likely to get us both killed. It appears that my reasoning didn’t resonate with him as his reply was… “You’ve got a big mouth for an old C***!” Now I’ve been called a C*** on many occasions and can handle that, but the ‘old’ bit really hurt !!
