Two Fat Ladies....

.... make a crowded house. Although we escaped the worst of the horrendous weather this weekend the forecast looks dire so I though it would be kind to bring the two broodmares in from grass as they are nearly due and it is time they had their rugs off; having not seen them without a rug for several months I am always rather surprised by how large they are and this year was no exception - Harrietfield on the left is due to Generous in about 4 weeks and Berkeley Run to Desert Prince, both mares have already produced winners so fingers crossed.

The only barn I had to put them in was currently occupied by brother Jamie's temporary residents so we hastily assembled two "stables" for them, they needed to come off straw as they are due to run soon, I think they appear a little bemused by their new lodgings.

Despite the bitterly cold wind and sodden ground we took the opportunity to pop two of our own point-to-pointers over the schooling fences, Commercial Express (last seen at Perth in the summer) leads the "late-maturing" home bred Seeking Power (last seen in Co Meath two years ago) - they are likely to be among our next runners at the West Percy point-to-point a week today (Sunday 25th), we won't have any runners on the track this week.....

N

In the bleak mid-winter...

...trainer can get a little tetchy as plans are continually changing and every way we move we seem to be frustrated by the weather one way or another, it's a challenge keeping the 17 horses fit, healthy and sound with the goalposts continually shifting. Unlike many other yards our horses have missed no work and this morning was a joy as for the first time for what seems like months (but is only actually 10 days or so) we were able to gallop on grass again which they all seemed to enjoy.

After many abandonments we are eventually going to be racing again tomorrow when Art Investor lines up in the 4pm at Ayr, 11 run, Fearghal Davies rides and the ground will be very soft as the forecast is stormy. I had always presumed that this horse wanted good ground but he hasn't been showing much and we feel its worth a try on soft given the limited opportunites around at the moment.

I was hoping to have had a few more runners but the ground is going to be very testing and I just want to avoid that with most of them, we hope to have a couple of runners at Newcastle on Wednesday next week where conditions seem a bit better.

Please apologise for the poor quality of the two videos below but I just wanted to see whether I could master the technology.... here is 2nd lot this morning quickening up on the grass, Northern Dusk is the one at the front, he is ready to run in a bumper but has been frustrated by the weather...

and here is Skipping Chapel making a bit of a din coming up the all-weather, that's why he is avoiding the heavy ground at Ayr tomorrow

It will be interesting to see if I have mastered the technology, if so the potential is limitless!

N