12th January 2016

Agamemmon has come out of his run yesterday in good shape, he spent the morning in the paddock.

Routine canters for most this morning, all the 4 year olds schooled over fences, the early ones are all 3 a breast and jumping nicely. Late morning, we dug many test holes around the sand gallop to check the depth. Sand gallops like many other surfaces bed in and a pan is formed at the lower levels, our pan is between 9-10 inches below the top of the surface. The gallop is very safe for the horses, yet, the drainage is affected by the pan. Without bring in diggers to turn the whole lot we are investigating other ways to loosen the pan. A power harrow wouldn’t get much lower than the implement I use currently. We may have an ace card up our sleeve……….

This afternoon, I went to the Welsh boarders to see a 4-year-old by Black Sam Bellamy who will be joining us shortly, he’s a nice model and looks like a racehorse to me. The plan is to run him once in the Spring before turning him away again. A plan is a plan and not set in stone, he will tell us if he’s ready.

The homemade Welsh fruit cake which was delicious.