We had no runners yesterday so a relaxing afternoon with my parents and the rest of the family too. With my parents offering to take us out for lunch, we made our first visit to The Fox at Broadwell since Ed and Dom Simpson have taken it on a few months ago and we were very impressed. Not only was the service very good (we expected that!) but the food was superb and my parents, in particular, were very impressed. It’s not far from us and we will definitely be back.
The sunshine we were fortunate to enjoy yesterday is back again today – long may it last! A normal busy Monday morning with farrier Nick Partridge, vet Jeremy Swan and physios Maggie Turner and Hannah Ashton all in to ensure the team is in rude health.
We schooled a few horses this morning over hurdles on our Leisure Ride Carpet loop and they jumped well. These included: Enforcement, Forecast, Ask Alice, Primogeniture, Morning Herald and Pomme De Nuit. Harry, Harley, Kieran and Alfie all assisting. Cotswold Prince and Bay Dude went through the stalls again and were very well behaved.
One runner tonight – Mr Mafia goes to Worcester in the last race under Harry Stock. Worcester came under a lot of flack last meeting and I did feel for the team there as it can’t have been easy and most of them have absolutely no control over the finances required to update the owner experience there. Dr Dunraven won that day for us and the members of our Racing Club enjoyed their day. Whilst a few owners don’t want to have runners there, there are plenty of mine who do and, as usual, I’ll adapt running plans to suit owners and horses alike.
Mr Mafia won on his only start for me at Stratford just over 3 weeks ago – an emotional winner and thrilling especially for part owner John Abernethy who has been involved in owning horses for 47 years and it was his first winner – tears of joy all round! He runs in Peter Boggis’ colours today and seems in really good heart so will hopefully go close again – he’s already a real favourite in the yard despite only being here a few months.