Thanks for all the birthday wishes for Wednesday – another year older….! A delicious supper with my family at The Hollow Bottom.
Yesterday owners Matt Capp visited us and I showed him his horses in the field and both are doing really well. Robsam, named after his sons, is enjoying his summer holiday despite the rain and Dreamsundermyfeet, a partnership Matt is in run superbly by Owners for Owners has grown so much during his holiday and was almost the size of Champion Court. He was bossing the rest of the horses apart from Champ too! Matt kindly took Belinda & I for lunch and it was a fun catch up.
Today Abi Stock was in for her last ride before she gets on her family horse, Good Tradition, in the Paddock at York for the Macmillan Ride of Their Lives charity race. Abi and her amazing family have raised over £30,000 for the race and Abi has been in regularly to ride out and has had a personal trainer and also met Carl Llewellyn here to use our Mechanical Horse once a week. Carl is a very good jockey coach and Abi has improved no end and no doubt it will be an amazing yet emotional experience riding in her late father’s colours on the horse who kept him going through his treatment last summer and who Harry won on a few times too. Do tune in to the Opening Show on ITV at 9.30am tomorrow as Abi is on. Good luck Abi, we are so proud of you.
Sadly Worcester is not unsurprisingly abandoned tomorrow night. If the ground had been usual June good ground I’d anticipated having 4 or 5 runners but it’s not usual and is waterlogged!
Aintree tonight (hate that journey on a Friday) with Capital Force and Richard Johnson in the plate. Gavin Sheehan stood in at Ludlow last time when Richard had sustained a fall the night before and was too sore. Gavin was superb on him and they won the big race of the day much to John & Claire Abernethy’s delight. He seems in good form and will hopefully run another big race in what is a small field but a very competitive one.