The morning after the day before

Today was spent in relative silence as my throat remained sore and hoarse, phone calls and conversations are at a minimum - much to the delight of everyone on the yard and I am very grateful for emails. I hasten to add that the sore throat is not the result of excess this week, although it might have been, but sadly I remain a lightweight when it comes to socialising. The simple fact is, the lurgy, man flu, or whatever you prefer to call the common cold virus, has hit me like a tonne of bricks.

Today’s runners were sent on a carpet bombing exercise with three horses in one race at Wolverhampton- shame I wasn’t able to attend!

This was thanks to the fact that two needed a third run in order to get a handicap mark, which will make it far easier to find suitable races for them, while the other colt was having his first appearance in what has been a rather belated racecourse debut. "Panther in Pink" and "Slave To Freedom" have shown glimmers of hope and should be able to get competitive in their right grade once they are running in handicap company, while "Highly Focused" ran very well for a horse who is naturally quite gross and who has had set backs. He will improve considerably for the run.

At Newcastle "Belles Angel" showed she also needs a new handicap mark or better still, a new career. We do have a nice home lined up for her but want to give her every opportunity to “win something” before we pull up stumps altogether.

At home work to renew the pathways to and from the gallops is shaping up, the water treadmill will soon have a concrete floor to repalce the rubber matting put down as a temprorary measure a year ago! As well as a new foot bath in the wash off area. A very advanced new lighting system is due to be installed next week and will hopefully complete our "annual big spend" during which time we upgrade our facilites and keep everything in tip top shape.

The weekend promises to be quiet which doesn’t happen often so we hope to make the most of it.