At last..

.. we were racing again, Ayr managed to stage the first jump racing in Scotland since November and the going was on the soft side of good.  We ran Forcefield and Northern Flame on Sunday, the former was having his first outing over hurdles and as we hadn't managed to do as much schooling as we would have liked the principal object was to introduce him to jumping at racing pace, I was delighted with the way he jumped and though he was a little outpaced 5f out he galloped on strongly to the line, there should be plenty more to come.  Northern Flame ran with much more purpose than on his debut and put up a very encouraging effort over a trip that will prove well short of his optimum.  On Monday we ran Native Coll who didn't appear to handle the better ground and was niggled along when he slipped on landing after the 10th to give us our first faller since December 09, sadly we didn't have to wait as long for our next one as half an hour later Isla Pearl Fisher got in too tight and fell at the last fence having just taken up the lead, agonising, but all horses and jockeys are fine and at least we know the horses are still healthy and fit despite what the weather has thrown at us over the last six weeks.
Back here conditions are still tricky but 80% of the "all-weather" is in good order and most of the horses worked on it this morning, a few more beach parties are planned and hopefully the weather will continue to open up to allow us to use some of the other facilities here, all being well we will have our next runners at Newcastle on Tuesday but Kelso on Wednesday looks doubtful.