Yesterday Harry Atkins had a day he’ll never forget – his first ride in public at Hereford on City Never Sleeps for our Racing Club. Harry is 16 years old and has ridden out here whilst he was still at school in the holidays and weekends and joined us full time on leaving school back in the summer. City Never Sleeps is a favourite in the yard and Vicki Atkins, Harry’s mother who rides out here every day, is very fond of him too so it was fitting that she was at Hereford to lead Harry & City up.
Harry gave City a lovely ride and City looked after him too and they were up in the first few keeping out of trouble for most of the race and had it been a 2 1/2 mile race then they would have probably taken a part in the finish but the 3 1/4 miles stretched his stamina to the maximum. As City Never Sleeps tired Harry kept him balanced and popped him home to finish 8th and he was beaming coming back in, and we were all thrilled with how they’d done. Sadly as they walked back in it became evident that City Never Sleeps was lame and he got increasing lame at the stable yard so the Vets had a look at him, his tendons that have troubled him before and took x-rays too. These revealed nothing so he was given painkillers and allowed to travel home. He was comfortable last night but we’ll get the vet to check him tomorrow when he is in.
No runners today but we had three runners at Lingfield on Sunday and the ground was pretty bottomless there which either suits them or it doesn’t. Sadly it didn’t suit either Mozzaro or She Has Notions and they will run on much better ground next time and no doubt we can put a line through their runs. Big Nasty would have preferred better ground too but he got through it and jumped for fun under Sean Bowen and, despite nearly being knocked over after the last fence, they stayed together and finished 2nd which was a great run after his summer holiday. Plenty of his owners were there, had a Box and stayed over at Lingfield so were enjoying a pretty good day and were thrilled with him as were we.