23.12.13

We schooled 5 horses last Thursday, Verano and Almost Gemini are very quick over their hurdles.

I went to Bill Rees memorial service on Thursday, it was a lovely service and I saw a lot of my old weighing room colleagues. We ran Who Owns Me that day at Towcester. Harry Bannister rode him to take some weight off, unfortunately they fell at the 8th fence which was just one of those things, but they were both none the worse the next day for their fall. We will look for another race fairly shortly.

On Friday 2nd Lot went round the home gallop on the grass, all the horses thoroughly enjoyed this - all though I am not sure my staff enjoyed getting their arms pulled out! I also had a lot of visitors that morning, Tony Holt and Ian McNabb came to see their horse Verano on the gallops, Noel Chance popped round (to use the fax machine!) and Diana Henderson came round to wish me a Merry Christmas.

On Saturday we had Noel Fehily, Mark Grant and James Davies in to ride work 1st lot. Seventh Sky, Lord of House and Latelo worked extremely well on the grass up back of the hill. When Noel Fehily says that a horse is an aeroplane a trainer sits up and takes note, so I am looking for a nice bumper for Latelo shortly. After the horses worked I went shooting in the woods behind my house, it rained all morning and I got absolutely soaked. After a hot bath I carried on the Christmas festivities by attending two different drinks parties!

I had a lovely evening last night at Olympia in Nigel and Ros Kempners box, it was a very entertaining evening and always one of the highlights of this time of year for me.

This morning we had several owners in and have been hit with nothing short of Hurricane Katrina all day! I declared Airmens Friend and Shockingtimes at Market Rasen on Boxing day, they would not want the ground any softer so I will be keeping an eye on the amount of rain they have over the next couple of days. Lord Of House is declared at Wincanton, he will enjoy the mud so I hope it is on.