a little self-indulgence....

after escaping the frost last week it has been disappointing to lose the point-to-point at Alnwick today and I am afraid I have been a little self-indulgent by publishing various photographs below of our success on Thursday.
We hope to be racing again at Carlisle tomorrow when Papamoa is due to make his racecourse debut, he has been declared to run several times over the past couple of months, he seems well but as with the rest of them it is difficult to tell exactly where we are fitness-wise. 17 run and amongst them will be daughter Lucy partnering the Normile's point-to-point winner Barrhead which is also making its debut under rules. I am delighted that she is picking up one or two outside rides now on such nice horses as this and the Boswell's Floreanna, it is so good of them to give her a chance and I am sure she will justify the confidence they are showing in her. Later in the week we have a few entries at Ayr on Thursday but at this stage I think Almost Blue is the only likely runner.
We have had many gratefully received messages of congratulations from a huge variety of sources since Thursday and I am only slightly apologetic for putting the series of self-explanatory pictures below on the blog, I don't suppose I will often breed the winning horse (in partnership with brother Jamie and Stan) and the winning rider (in a slightly different sort of partnership with Mrs A), I won't bore you yet with some of the myriad of stories that have accrued about this particular animal but he was the horse that lost his bridle last March in a point-to-point and bolted prior to burying Lucy in a barbed-wire fence, with hindsight he was probably quite a "good thing" that day...