26th December 2015

Well, we couldn’t be further away from Christmas for another year. We got all those running over Christmas and the New Year out yesterday morning for a couple of canters.

The children put me on an office ban yesterday and made it very clear that Christmas day is only once a year. I found myself peeling potatoes and carrots instead of doing paper work. We had a fantastic day, delicious lunch with just the 5 of us. Sophie was in hospital last Christmas and it was fab to all be back together. I did evening stables with the foreign lads and the others had the chance to spend the rest of the day with their families or friends.

This morning was back to normal, every horse got out. Singlefarmpayment, Lamanver Alchemy and Kelsey swung through on the woodchip. Sadly, Wetherby is off tomorrow. I thought both horses had good chances and am naturally disappointed. Kelsey has an entry at Uttoxeter on 31^st, Alchemy and Rebekah Rabbit at Warwick on the same day. It is certainly wet under foot in Herefordshire. We have 2 spring fed ponds just beow our house and on the list of jobs is to create a water splash for the horses.

I had to watch a re-run of the King George, in addition to building Christmas presents I was in charge of the beef at lunchtime, what a race. I am delighted for the Tizzard’s, and you won’t meet a more down to earth family. We had a very good result with Full Shift at Kempton, a horse we sold to JP after he won his p2p. I am also delighted to see that there is now some funding for advertising horses that have graduated from UK point to points in the result section of The Racing Post. All too often commentators refer to point to point winners as being Irish ones and this is simply not always the case. Many are English point to point winners, the infomation is just not easily accessable and racing pundits just asume they are Irish. I was listening to William Hill radio when Fly Du Charmil won his bumper at Newbury, they said he was an English p2p winner and could be discounted. They did receive an email that very afternoon!