I had lunch in a box in Ascot on Friday courtesy of Paynes Hicks Beech, it was a lovely day being entertained by a good friend of mine and owner Simon Beccle who works for them. The winners were hard to come by as the races were nearly all handicaps and none of the favourites won!
I then had six people round for supper that night, Katya did a great job cooking for everyone and it was a very good evening.
We worked most of the horses on Saturday, the main lot of horse are all starting to come on now. Attimo and Stoney Silence worked very well together on the bank, they are two promising young horses. The prospective novice chasers Who Owns Me and Duke of Monmouth showed me the correct signs for this time of year. On the back of the hill gallop Lord of House and Shockingtimes stepped up the pace a bit for the first time this year and look really well.
I let William my son mow the lawn that afternoon, he managed to break the mower and also took a brick out of my new patio! I then did something in the afternoon that I never thought I would do..I thought it would be the lowest point of my training career in that I went to Wolverhampton for an evening meeting on a Saturday to watch a horse I trained and part own run in a flat race on the All Weather. Simon drove Marie and myself to the racecourse but I have to say after the shock of driving through the town itself it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated!
When the Jockey came into the parade ring I thought I recognised him, it turned out that he is the chef at our local pub! When he asked me for my orders I very nearly said I would have a prawn cocktail and a medium steak! It all turned out well in the end, Josh gave Scepticism a good ride and he won by a neck. I am very keen to keep my 100% strike rate at Wolverhampton so I doubt I will be running anything else there again!
On Sunday we went to the RAC club at Epsom to have lunch with Judy and Michael Maynard and friends, it was a very jolly affair and we also managed to watch the Arc.
This morning I rode Champagne N Caviar 1st lot, he felt very good. I rode Latelo 2nd lot, he surprises me every time I ride, he is getting stronger and stronger and I think he could be very good. Attimo is in very good order, his half brother Altano won a Group 1 at Longchamp yesterday so I cant understand how we still have some shares available in him - he must be worth a fortune now!
Western King is entered on Thursday and Sunday, I will take a look at the races over the next 24 hours and decide where to go with him. He looks well and still has a lovely summer coat.
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