Charlie Mann Racing

I took my children Matilda and William up to Edinburgh for our annual trip. We stayed with both my sisters and the weekend with my brother. The Edinburgh Festival is fascinating as there are so many street performers and different shows to go to and it keeps my kids enthralled. On the second day we were there we ran Victor Leudorum at Stratford and he won by 23 lenghts which did not do his Handicap mark a lot of good as he went up 13lb for winning. We turned him out again quickly a week later again at Stratford in a £10,000 chase and he won again. Although he runs in Vanessa Eke's name he is owned by me and he is for sale.

We had Terry Simmons down on Friday to watch his horses out third lot and then we had lunch in the Malt. John and Veronica Thorneloe came round to look at the horses in the afternoon. We then had Anthony and Wendy Smith who came to see their horses and stayed the night at the Malt. We had a very good dinner together and then they watched  their horses on the gallops the next morning.

We ran Gowanauthat at Newton Abbot on Saturday. He carried top weight against 8 rivals, he made all the running, jumped like a cat and won his fourth race in a row this season. Considering we were going to sell him at the end of last season he has been a star.

We have had a very good start to this season and our last 3 runners have all won. Most of the horses are cantering now and we have quite a few for sale.

Its a sad day today as the Olympics have finished and I was in awe of them. To finish 2nd in the table and beat China is an enormous accomplishment. It was wonderful to see Nick Skelton at the age of 58 win a gold medal and it was an amazing achievement. Anyway hats off to all GB Team members and I look forward to Tokyo.

The nights and mornings are drawing in a bit now and we are starting to do a bit more with some of the horses.On Saturday Tommy Dowling got on a horse for the first time since his accident at the end of April.He has made an amazing recovery considering the amount of bones that he broke. He was at first told that he would not ride for a year and he's made it back onto a horse in the space of 4 months. He is hoping to race ride in mid September so we all wish him well.