Runners report...

We worked horses first and second lot on Saturday - Simon Kimber and Julie came round to watch Expedite work. I wanted to work them on the grass, but we had so much rain, that the Jockey Club closed the grass gallops, so we ended up using the all weather up the back of the hill. It rained heavily all morning and I had a quiet day watching the racing in front of the television.

On Sunday we had a very busy day, with 4 runners at Ffos Las and Sandown. I took Mark and George Hitchcroft and their friend Steve racing to Sandown, where we had three runners. We ran Capatosta in the Juvenile hurdle and as he is so big, he is still very weak, so he really is next years horse. We then ran Gowanauthat at Ffos Las - he was travelling really well and then made a terrible mistake at the third last. He was a bit unlucky and deserves a bit of luck now - the owners certainly do anyway!!! We took on Coneygree with Seventh Sky, who ran a really nice race - he jumped beautifully. Finishing 2nd to a Gold Cup winner is no disgrace and he picked up some nice prize money too. We ran Fine Parchment in the veterans race - he jumped beautifully and ran a good race to finish 5th. He now qualifies for a £100,000 veterans race at Sandown on January 1st, which will be his target.

We have quite a few entries for the middle-end of this week, including Ephraim, who we think a lot of, and Maid of Milan, who is a nice mare that we think a lot of. Morney Wing also has some entries as does Cody Wyoming, Some Kinda Lama, Dragon City, Airpur Desbois and Tango Unchained.

We were desperate for rain last week, and as usual, we got too much.

We had a NTF meeting today at Newbury racecourse, which I like to attend as I am on the council, and we discussed the same, usual things, but it was more to do with flat racing rather than jumping to be honest.

There is a nice sale at Cheltenham on Saturday if anyone would like to come along!!

To Begin, taken by Kara, at Musselburgh last weekend