26th October 2017

Routine canters for most this morning, all the babies jumped in the ménage having had a canter up the hill. They are progressing nicely; we have just had to go back to basics with a few of them. If a beat is missed schooling on the strip it can become challenging for us and daunting for the horses, one horse can mess it up for those in behind. They will be back down their next week popping away.

David’s Phoebe is fine after her fantastic run at Worcester yesterday, she will now be given a handicap mark and we will have options, she is still very inexperienced and I’m sure will stay in novice company for now.

Vado Forte is going the right way, he will be fine, he’s a big raw baby and a talented horse. Time is the only answer for him mentally and physically, we all expect too much from these horses nowadays, 20 years ago he wouldn’t even have had a saddle on his back.

I got very excited this evening when I noticed a reopened race at Taunton entering 2 horses before reading the conditions. You have to be rated 0-130, been placed in a hurdle race and have had at least 3 runs in handicaps never having won a race of any description. No wonder they have 4 entries. Annoyingly, I can’t pull the entries. Some embarrassment is removed given that the best trainers in the country often enter horses that are not qualified for races. Note to self - no matter how excited you get, read the conditions before pressing enter.

You won’t need too many stabs to guess what arrived in the post this morning. Yes, you have it – another BT fibre optic hub!