Celebrations….

Tuesday May 31st…Well, that’s it, 50 years gone and statistically probably not another 50 years to go!  The last supper of my first 50 years was celebrated in Gretna services; a Burger King washed down with a Starbucks caramel frappacino with an extra shot, fantastic, well not at all fantastic actually, felt rather sick – could have done better!  Never mind, what really was worth celebrating yesterday was Daasij’s impressive completion of a hat-trick in the 5.40 at Cartmel, he won eased up by 9 lengths and appears to be improving.  I struggled to find the right races for him after his win at Newcastle on 1st April and pinpointed this race and the one at Hexham last week some time ago, I hoped we might be able to pull off a quick double and am delighted that it worked, it rarely does and I suffered plenty of angst over the weekend wondering whether to run again, phew!

Daasij

Earlier in the afternoon Twelve Paces put in a rather unenthusiastic effort to finish 4th in the staying chase with Lucy having to push and shove for 3 circuits, it will be rather a contrast when she breaks out of the stalls in a 6f sprint at Redcar this afternoon where she rides Broctune Papa Gio for Keith Reveley at 5.30, I know what I prefer watching – one last about a minute the other feels like an hour!  Extra helpings of parental agony tomorrow when Kit rides Commercial Express in the 4.30 at Cartmel and Lucy rides Floreanna for the Boswells in the same race, 12 run and both have a good chance if they handle the unusual track.

It’s been a hectic week at the end of a busy few months, I am delighted that I appear to have more energy for the job than ever, when they’re running well you feel that you can go anywhere- it’s invigorating.  We will hopefully have a couple of runners at Perth on Sunday but after that we will quieten down for a few months; I hope that by having the horses run consistently well from October until the end of May together with producing some real improvers such as Daasij and Isla Pearl Fisher we have shown that we can do a good job and might be able to keep the ball rollling, we can’t do it without the support of our owners and I thank them all profoundly, we will be retiring a few to an easier life over the next week or so (horses not owners I hope!) and will have vacancies (for both!), we also have some extremely promising young horses here for sale, onwards & upwards – spread the word!