Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day with family and/or friends. It’s been a pretty quiet time for us as I’ve been laid low with a horrible cold that I can’t seem to shake off despite antibiotics. I did manage to go to our Christmas Party at The Farmers Arms last Thursday which everyone seemed to have a fun evening with delicious food. The girls beat the boys in the skittles and Foxy won the King Pin at the end of the night.
Thanks to all my team for all their hard work over the year and the Christmas period too. We are fortunate to have some very keen girls who help us out at weekends enabling our team to work one in three weekends instead of every other – time off is so important. They were all so helpful to come in on Christmas morning at 6am which enabled a few of our full timers to have a rare full Christmas Day off so thank you so much to Phoebe and Winnie Brazil, Nell Clark and Charlotte Oakey as well as Jemima and Polly Turner who are helping us daily over the Christmas period and were also in to help and ride out yesterday morning. Chris & Paul Dee came in and Chris rode out for the first time in about 6 months. A very jolly morning and, after the rest of the presents were handed out and some food & drink consumed, they were all on their way before 9.30am to enjoy the day as Belinda, the boys and I do evening stables on Christmas Day.
Three runners today with Samtara our sole runner at Huntingdon under Finn Lambert, a Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle for Roger & Yvonne Allsop. Over at Market Rasen Duke of Luckley bids to follow up his exciting win in the fog at Catterick last time on chasing debut. Sean Bowen partners him again and is also in the saddle on Spanish Present, who ran a blinder last time at Leicester but was outstayed having looked the winner jumping the last hurdle. He drops back in trip and has been very fresh and well since then so will hopefully go close again today.
A fantastic day of jump racing!