6th February 2020

A quiet morning for the horses, many just had quiet canters up the hill. Fair Kate and Capac jumped eight hurdles in preparation for their runs tomorrow. Christopher Robin heads to Bangor. To read my thoughts click here.

I managed to cope with yesterdays second without having too bad a mood swing but today’s two second places was considerably more mood altering. It’s like a bruise on a bruise and I certainly feel like I’ve lost a pound and found a penny. I’m not sure it’s normal to feel so pissed off when the horses are running so well but that’s the way it is. Thankfully, we have the chance to have another go tomorrow. Tea Clipper will have learnt a huge amount today; it was his first experience racing at that tempo in deep enough company. I thought he was still going to get up jumping the last but is just didn’t happen today. Glory and Fortune was destined for second place once the hurdles were omitted against a horse rated 99 on the flat. Had the hurdles been in I think we’d have had a different result. I thought Stan set very good fractions and was simply beaten by a horse with way more experience and that flat pace. The prize money at Doncaster is disgusting and we will seriously consider what we are running there in the future. I don’t ever recall such a problem with the sun many years ago, maybe it has changed shape and shines differently nowadays? 

My day didn’t improve when I pulled into Greggs for tea and donuts to find only one jam donut left and I needed a minimum of two. My car then decided to start a screeching an internal alarm giving me a thirty minuet experience of living with tinnitus. I was glad to get the opportunity to pull off the motorway and restart the car thankfully without the alarm sounding.