Monday 17 February
A weekend of contrasting fortunes. Friday, the diminutive Inca Dove finished second in her debut bumper in Fakenham. A promising start, and hopefully this half sister to the equally tiny Grassfinch can emulate her sibling and pay her way. Not a nice trip back from Norfolk for Stuart, as he battled the torrential rain and massive cross winds on the A14 - he was glad to get home!! Saturday we went to Haydock with San Telm. A decent third on heavy ground on his previous run we fancied him to run a big race on similar ground. Unfortunately the ground in Haydock was filthy, as bad as many of the jockeys could remember racing on. Josh said that in comparison, Huntingdons ground was Good!! San Telm did his absolute best but just got very tired in the bottomless ground. It will take him a day or two to recover, but he will be back in about a month on hopefully a sounder surface, and he is still on a winning mark! Yesterday we headed to Kempton for their jumpers bumper card. Dawn Commander had run very well there just over 2 weeks previously, and with the BHA kindly putting on a couple of races with an extra 2 furlongs to gallop into, we went there quietly confident! Brendan Powell was once again in the plate and he gave the horse a peach of a ride. Not able to hols a prominent position from the gate he was forced to sit and suffer on the inside rail, but was always travelling, and got a lovely seam up the rail as the rounded the top bend. Switching to the outer with 2 furlongs to run DC really put his head down and galloped all over the top of the 2 in front of him to win by a comfortable 1 1/4 lengths. Club members were delighted, I have rarely seen so many happy faces from the large turnout of DC owners. Life has been tough for Club members over the last 12 months or so. Since we retired dear old Kikos it has been very difficult to find 'the right horse' - but we seem to have hit the spot again. DC seems to have really enjoyed life at Fences Farm, and is thriving, so we can look forward to a fun summer with him in some decent races at some very nice tracks!! All 3 horses seem to have come out of their races well. Later this week, Genny Wren is in at Ludlow, Carloina Wren has an entry in Huntingdon, Smart Exit and Native Princess have entries in Warwick (Fri), Colebrooke will be entered in Kempton on Saturday, and Smart Exit will have an entry in Towcester on Sunday - a busy week, but hopefully we can hit the winners spot again!!
