Monday 25 August 2014

A trip overseas

I have been busy riding out again this past week, it is nice to get back on the gallops. Lambro is on good form and is on course to run next month, he will have prep race before the Pardubice in the first week or so of September. Victor Leudorum will run at Worcester on Wednesday providing the ground doesn't go to soft. This morning I rode Nimbus Gale, he is one of our new horses who will be offered for sale in a syndicate at our open day. He is a nice horse to sit on and goes well taking a nice contact. He doesn't have the best bumper form but having ridden him today I feel there is plenty of improvement to come from him as he matures. Bridal Suite and Miller Of Glanmire are two nice horses and have gone about there job well so far. The new horse that really has caught my eye is Royal Redemption, he moves like a dressage horse with a 'look at me' attitude and is very game.
 
We did 3 soft palate wind ops on Tuesday. Fine Parchment, Sands Cove and Lord Of House were done as per usual which means it should see them through the season. Tomorrow we will do 5 more, 3 of them are routine soft plates but Attimo and Big Jer who are both big thick set horses will have some more work to improve their breathing. All the other horses are now doing two canters up my gallop. This year we have managed to get plenty of trotting into them all and although they have only been cantering for just over a week they seem plenty fit enough for this time of year.
 
On Wednesday I flew to Dusseldorf in preparation to look at some horses the following day. In the evening I met my agent Reinhard Olding in my favourite fish restaurant.  Reinhard has sourced some good horse for me over the years, including Moon Over Miami and Airforce One. I was up at 4.30am on Thursday morning and rode five horses at Peter Schiergen's yard. I saw another seven horses at Waldemar Hickst and then we drove over to Markus Klug's yard and saw three more horses. I have been on these trips numerous times now and sometimes have seen absolutely nothing, however this time I saw three really nice horses. I am very keen to get my hands on at least one of them. The trip back wasn't so successful though as my return flight was delayed 5 hours.
 
On Friday I took Katya to Reading Hospital. I spent 5 hours there while she had a three and a half hour operation on her hand. Poor Katya had managed to put a knife through her hand cutting an avocado (3rd world problems!) at the time it didn't look very serious but as it turned out she had actually cut through a nerve and had to have surgery to reconstruct the nerve and regain the feeling in her fingers. It will keep her off a horse for some time which is a shame.
 
We ran Ussee on Saturday at Cartmel. She ran well to finish second. I hope I can place her to win a race somewhere. Harry Bannister rode her and said she probably ran her race. I will get her out a bit quicker next time as I think she had gone back a bit in-between her two runs.
 
I managed to get all the lawns mowed on Sunday which is a good job as it is chucking it down with rain at the moment. We watched the Lambourn carnival procession in the afternoon, I always think we should support this as in its hay-day it was an impressive parade. We do not seem to make the effort nowadays which is a shame for the children. Maybe we should do a Neardown Stables float next year - ideas welcome!

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