17th February 2020

Typical Monday morning canters soon came around again, the wind and rain first lot was as bad as we’ve had all winter and certainly the coldest morning. We have escaped the worse of it, those in the immediate surrounding areas have been hit a lot worse and have their properties under water. 

The BHA are doing a super job restaging some of the higher profile races lost and putting on jumper bumpers cards in Newcastle and Wolverhampton. Those wanting pre Cheltenham runs will surely be grateful for their efforts. We are being reminded on a daily basis now how difficult it is to keep horses fit, sound and well as we read about horses missing Cheltenham through one reason or another. It goes on day in day out but we just don’t get to read about those missing mid week races. We’ve had a set back with Sebastopol and he will miss the rest of the season. He got what appeared to be a typical infection in his hind leg, something that is common enough in horses in such weather conditions. However, it transpired to be a particularly nasty bug, the first course of antibiotics didn’t touch it, we then moved onto another antibiotic before the infection burst out through his leg leaving some very nasty superficial scaring. This will have taken its toll on him and he will need time to recover and for the skin to heal.  Thankfully, it came out and did not work its way inwards, had the infection reached his tendon sheaf or into his hind joint it could have been fatal. As upsetting as it I’m grateful he is there for another day.