The clocks have gone forward an hour and whilst in usual times after a late night out that may seem hard, these days when we are all staying at home and no doubt going to bed a lot earlier, it doesn’t feel much different! I welcome the even lighter mornings though as it certainly helps with the early mornings.
On Sundays our horses are always turned out for the whole day and are only ridden out if they are running the following day and we have a much later start of 8am which makes it easier for me to work out what horses are going out in which paddocks and also what combination of rugs they are wearing having watched the BBC weather and checked my phone. In fact this weekend they have been turned out since they were ridden on Saturday and won’t come back in until Monday morning – not only do the horses love staying out all weekend but it makes life easier for the team too so it’s a win/win situation. They still get fully checked, rugs changed morning & night if need be and also fed breakfast and supper and have haylage if their paddocks haven’t got enough grass although that is coming through well now.
Yesterday was a work morning for a lot of the team and we had James Best, Warren Marston and Harry Greasby in. Horses we worked up the grass included Back On The Lash, Reve, Mozzaro, Eclat Des Mottes, Duke of Luckley, Herecomeshogan, Brorson, Miss Antipova, Cul De Poule, Just A Diva, Bri, Samtara, Enforcement, Big Nasty and Fiddledi Dee.
We also had some excitement in our house (from Belinda & Harry mainly!) as Peter & Jane Boggis brought Mr Mafia back from his winter at home with them for a summer campaign. He’s now 12 years old but you wouldn’t think that looking at him as he looks fabulous, which was no surprise as Jane always turns her horses out immaculately, and Jane worked him up the grass upsides Belinda & Dreamsundermyfeet and he went well. As long as he shows the same enthusiasm for racing then we’ll keep him going and hopefully have lots more fun with him. It was so cruel he didn’t manage to get his head in front last season. As usual he always tried his heart out and often led from the front running his rivals ragged until, too frequently, something came out of the pack, often with more youthful legs, to deny him the victory he deserved. Even Matt Chapman came up to me at Newton Abbot last September after he’d been beaten by a rival who hadn’t won for well over a year before and not since, with the rest 20 lengths behind, to say “what does Mr Mafia have to do to win a race? That was just cruel”. Let’s hope luck goes his way this time but he owes us nothing so as soon as he tells us he’s not enjoying it like he has done, we’ll retire him but let’s hope that won’t be soon as he’s a joy to train.
No runners today but I’m a huge F1 fan so my afternoon will be watching the first race of the season whilst editing my work video for my owners. It doesn’t look as it if will be the ‘Hamilton Show’ this season either so a much more exciting race in prospect.
We look forward to welcoming owners back to the yard from this week onwards. Unsurprisingly lots have already booked in through Belinda but there are still plenty of spaces, obviously sticking to the rule of 6, so get in touch and we’d love to see you all.