No rain this morning but although it’s been torrential for the past two days which hasn’t been great to work in, it did get into the ground on our schooling ground. Therefore after I’d spiked it and applied a few additional bowsers full of water I was happy it was safe, good ground to school on so we schooled a few this morning. Although a bit of rain is forecast this weekend, it’s windy and quite warm too and I was concerned if I’d left my schooling day until Monday the ground would go against us.
James Best in to school as well as Lilly Pinchin, who rode our final winner before Lockdown on Solstice Star at Uttoxeter. We schooled Cotswold Prince, Ten Past Midnight, Raving Bonkers, Capital Force, Gold Mountain and Lord Condi. Lilly was pleased to see Freddie riding out on Solstice Star – he’s a real gentleman of a horse and such a favourite in the yard and Freddie is going from strength to strength on him.
We also worked Gold Mountain (Warren Marston) and Mr Mafia and the rest 1st Lot did a swinging canter. We did have a VIP in to ride out two lots too – Foxy came back in to see us all. Foxy was our Assistant but left before Christmas to spend more time with his young son William and now rides out for Tom George who is much closer to him than we are. He’s furloughed at the moment and has enjoyed family time with finance Jo and William and hopes to come back in and ride out again. He rode two of his favourites Capital Force and Reve. The whole team were thrilled to see him as were we.
Matthew Baker was also in at the crack of dawn to watch all the horses he is involved in and was rewarded with watching Cotswold Prince school on the grass – good planning Matthew! Matthew got some cracking photos of the horses this morning too. It’s great having owners back on the gallops but does definitely feel odd that we can’t yet look after them as we used to with lots of hospitality. Soon, we hope, it will be back to normal.
Great to see friends connected to Condicote in the winners’ enclosure at Royal Ascot and, in addition to Owen Burrows who trained his first winner earlier in the week, Alan King made it two winners for the week yesterday when Hollie Doyle rode her first Royal Ascot winner at 33-1. Well done Kingy and Hollie too. Another good card in prospect today as well. Let’s hope we are all back there in person in 12 months time.