Tuesday 3 May

Kikos has an entry at Aintree on Friday evening (race time 6.50pm), and is an intended runner. Originally the plan had been to go to Stratford a week later, but with mother nature not providing us with any rain, we feel that the ground will be better at Aintree, with less liklihood of injury. Add into the mix the fact that an evening meeting at Aintree is far better fun than one at Startford, and it makes sense to go north! It is a shame about Stratford, but a rough straw poll among club members yesterday found that it would not rank very highly at all in a list of their favourite tracks - the two main reasons for their dissatisfaction were - being made to feel unwelcome at their point of entry, and some very slow and and uncheerful bar staff, who just make the whole afternoon a trial rather than a joy. We will not miss going there on this occasion, but will probably have to go back and see the 'happy' bunch later in the year! The good thing is that Stuart rode Kikos yesterday and reports him to be in rude health and ready to run! Colebrooke is out in the field with a few pals. He will have a short break and come back into training in about a month. The new store horse will be arriving later this week, and I will try to get as many of his owners over to see him on Saturday as I can, as he will be in for about a week before going out in the field until early July.