Yarmouth is a long way from Constable Burton (464 mile round trip) so in sending one runner, one jockey and two members of staff there, it was important that the horse in question had a good chance. "Benidiction" was unlucky not to have got her pretty little head in front at Beverly last time when touched off in a head bobbing finish, that was over the minium trip so she had to prove that six furlongs was not beyond her. In order to get the trip she needed to settle in behind and get a lead but as she flew the gates her saddle slipped up her neck making life a bit tricky for PJ, luckily he didn't need to move on her too much to win easily by five lengths, giving us our second winner in two days and four in the past fortnight, going some way to relieve the agony of so many close recent finishes. It was a relief that she won because not only had she travelled a long way but we had announced that she was expected to win on the "Ann's thoughts " page which is starting to attract plenty of followers.
Of course we had the usual skull duggery to deal with, phone calls from people trying to put us off running the odds on shot -this sort of nonsense happens occasionally for a variety of reasons and is almost certainly associated with gambling, it is hilarious and always makes me smile, this time there were two such calls. They are rather like the calls trainers get about "taking a bunch of underprivilaged children/ disabled/ elderely/ lonely people for a day out and please can we have your owners badges?"
Today another amusing 'try on' occured when a copy of a 'begging for business' letter reached us, this time it was a letter from one trainer- well known to me, AJ and George, to one of my long standing wonderful, but sadly for the letter writer, loyal owner. The same "happy" chappie has done it before - a few times.
At home today some of the as yet unraced two year olds enjoyed a stalls schooling session and all behaved very well with good manners and a nice attitude. Our two students from Richmond School watched the stalls work before doing an interview with a journalist who arrived to interview both Imogen and Georgie about their work experience on the yard. The article will soon be published in local papers and provides good PR for racing as we all try to do our bit to promote horse racing as a worthwhile career choice.