A busy week!

We have had a busy week helping John and Luke Davies get The Malt Shovel up and running as, much to everyone’s delight, they have taken a lease on the pub for a year, with an option to buying it. The Malt Shovel closed last November and the one thing that has come out of it in that time, is how much we have missed it and how much we need it back! I am sure it will do really well and everyone in the area is very excited about it. The pub now looks fantastic and they are hoping to open it on the 1^st October. Katya has been busy helping with the interior design of the pub and it is really coming together now.

We had lots of Red Letter Day guests here on Saturday – we worked a load of horses up the back of the hill and it is getting quite exciting now as we are letting them stride on a bit more. Baltic Storm looked especially good – he is a young horse who we bought from Germany earlier this year. Katya cooked a delicious breakfast for our guests and then rode out for the first time in 3 weeks following quite a nasty fall; she seemed to enjoy herself and has been riding out in the rain this morning!

We had a long lunch at The Hare on Saturday with Philip and Jo Hunt. We watched the Ledger from there and I thought Ralph Beckett's horse was unlucky to lose it, but I am not sure that they will get it back on the appeal. Ballydoyle had a fairly good weekend, having won both Ledger’s (English and Irish), but the horse that stood out over the weekend was Treve as she absolutely hacked up at Longchamp and it will take a very good horse to beat her in The Arc!

I took Mr Big on a local fun ride on Sunday with Mark Grant, Dominic and Ben Ffrench Davis, but it wasn’t as much fun as I had anticipated as Mr Big spent most of his time on his hind legs. I was going to hunt him this year, but I am not sure he will be as much fun as I had thought!!

My sister Caroline and brother in law Mark stayed on Sunday evening as they were on their way home from a wedding in Cornwall. They watched their horses on the gallops this morning. They are in The Neardowners syndicate, so watched Le Legro, Maid of Milan and Capatosta with great interest. They didn’t pick the best morning weather wise as it was pretty misty and ever so wet! Whoever said that we are going to have an Indian summer needs their head testing as it has rained all morning!!

Excitingly, we have just bought a very nice horse in Germany from Markus Klug called Ephraim. He is a gorgeous big 4yo, who has won a Group 3 race on the flat. He passed the vet on Saturday and I am hoping he will be coming over on Wednesday. He is a very high class horse and we are hoping he might make up into a Cheltenham contender!