Summer Jumping

Two year old's trotting & cantering so now ready to go back out to grass for the rest of the summer, Lucy off to work for Kevin Ryan in Yorkshire for a month or two, trainer staring at his haylage fields hoping that weather dries up soon and wondering whether he is too old to go to watch Coldplay at T in the Park after stunning show at Glasto last night;  few more fatties coming in tomorrow to start on the walker and 'tis the season of Highland Show, Game Fair, sports days, school plays and prizegivings and lets not forget the HUGE day at Perth on Thursday - a very special party that day.
A minor rant.......... I had of course hoped to have kept a few horses on the go over the summer but the three I had in mind are all now resting (may appear at the end of August).  Until now there has been a reasonable spread of fixtures but even Sedgefield, Hexham & Wetherby are taking a break and after this week we only have 4 fixtures at Perth , 4 at Cartmel and a couple at Sedgefield between now and 23rd September, that's 10 fixtures spread sporadically over 12 weeks.  Ideally one would have top of the ground types on the go but with the (rightly) watered ground as soon as there is any rain it turns soft and if they have to miss a race because of the ground there might be nothing for them for another six weeks, it is impossible to justify keeping them on the go on this basis let alone thinking of having a few more in.  Racegoers at Perth will wonder why there are so few locally trained runners and so many from Ireland, this is the reason!  In Ireland they have a rounded programme of jump racing through the summer so their trainers can keep a certain type of horse on the go, I don't know how they live with the transport costs though and I can't understand how Gordon Elliot can have 4 horses rated around 130 entered in a selling hurdle. In the past one might have thought of travelling South with them but with increased transport costs and sharply reduced prize money that is also impossible to justify - even at a "big" meeting such at today's Summer National card at Uttoxeter there are races on the card where the winning owner will end up with about £1350.  I may try to have a few on the go next summer but they will need to be dual purpose horses that can run on the flat as well.  I'm all for summer jumping but we need a bit more of it in the North otherwise it will just become even more of an Irish benefit.
Anyway the ironic thing is our winter horses are starting to come back in and within a couple of weeks the yard will be full of fresh but rested horses starting again with a view to being ready to rock and roll at the end of September......