A long day at Doncaster yesterday and sad to see both Somewhere To Be and Oscar World sold but am sure they have gone on to nice homes. We had hoped they’d make more for their owner who is shortly moving abroad but we hope they are successful for their new connections.
We did bring one horse home but it didn’t come to us as it was bought by Max Comley and his team to go point to pointing. Max rides out for us when needed and does a great job with his small team and indeed trained Alex Steedman’s Cloudy Joker to win recently after Alex’s partner Hannah Ashton had nursed him back to full fitness. It’s great that we can all support each other and is why racing is such a fantastic sport to be involved with.
I went on from Doncaster and stayed overnight near Karl Burke’s Middleham base as that was the destination this morning. I joined our Chairman Jon Hughes, who is also a great supporter of Karl’s yard, at 6am for 1st lot and we spent most of the morning there. A huge thank to Karl and his family and team – it was a super morning and so very interesting. They have a wonderful base and were so generous with their time and I took plenty away from my visit.
I called in to surprise my parents as I drove through Yorkshire and it was great to see him. I was still home in time to play football in the garden with my boys! They have broken up for half term today but last night were at Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre watching Fly Eddie Fly – starring Eddie the Eagle himself as the narrator – a true story of our local Olympic ski-jumping legend so they were full of that too.
Yesterday’s Chepstow runner Be Thankful was unsuited by the undulations there and Ed Greatrex wasn’t despondent when he got off her after what looked a disappointing run. Jockey’s feedback is so important and we’ll listen to his advice and look forward to her next run and hope to see some improvement.
Happy Birthday today to our Yardman Lucjan Wirth. Lucjan sorts and fixes everything and anything here and nothing is too much trouble for him. He’s invaluable around the yard and, despite not having anything to do with the horses, we’d be lost without him.