Big Ben...

It will be an early start tomorrow to ensure that Seeking Power arrives at Carlisle in good time to run in the 12.50 tomorrow where the ground will be soft and holding, 9 run and Lucy takes the ride, it will be her first ride against the professionals so let's hope all goes smoothly. This horse is very big in every sense of the word and will come on a lot for the run tomorrow, he has shown a bit of form in point-to-points but he is up against some classy & expensive opposition tomorrow and although I hope he will run well it is really an educational exercise all round. We were hoping that he would be joined at Carlisle by Miss Colima but at this stage she looks doubtful as she has some heat in her foot, we will take a late decision but it looks like she will have to wait another week or two.

Yesterday at Kelso Smart Cavalier ran well enough for the first part of his race but started jumping rather timidly as if something was amiss, he was quite stiff this morning so we will need to establish what is troubling him, he ate up and seems happy enough so hopefully it is nothing serious.

I was a little weary this morning after staying up to watch a scintillating performance by Zenyatta in the $5m Breeders Cup Classic, her 14th consecutive win was stunning - would she have beaten Sea the Stars though - who knows, and I for one will be perfectly happy never to know the answer to that question. Any tiredness was soon dissipated by watching this lovely young 4yo by Luso quicken up on the grass gallop, he has real potential, let's hope he's lucky..........

N

Rain!

Well, we wanted a decent drop of rain at Carlisle but the Good Lord rather over did things and conditions at Carlisle, en route and back here were simply shocking. Contendo waded round for 2 circuits before the conditions/lack of match fitness cut in and he ground to a halt on the run-in. We knew he was going there a "bit short" and the conditions certainly emphasised this, I was happy enough with him though and hopefully no harm done.

Back here our gallop suffered somewhat from the 50mm of rain that was delivered in about 8 hours and we are having to be a little more innovative in our training this week as we wait for little Jimmy to arrive with his digger to carry out some remedial work.

It's here already!

Today we are taking a few round to our neighbour Lucinda's gallop for a stiff piece of work.

Conditions permitting we will then head to Kelso on Saturday where hopefully the ground will be perfect, the intention is to run Smart Cavalier and Skipping Chapel. Then it might be back to Carlisle next Monday where Miss Colima and Seeking Power could make their seasonal reappearances....

Despite the horrible weather I did rather enjoy my trip to Carlisle, trucking down the M74 in the rain I was happy as Larry really to be going racing with a runner again, I was very hospitably treated on arrival with gin courtesy of Mr Peter & delicious pea & ham soup and pork rolls courtesy of the racecourse, they treat connections very well there; less so the lady jockeys who were forced out of their changing room by the overflow of males and had to put up with sporadic use of the medical room.... not very comfortable particularly in the the extreme weather conditions.

N

There's nae stopping him....

well, the day finally came and Jock aged 82 retired on Friday after 54 years working here. I was therefore slightly surprised to hear him call up the office stairs to me at 7.15 this morning to say he couldn't find reverse in the new tractor and get it out of the shed! Speaking of the new tractor, a certain amount of research has gone into its purchase and I was delighted when it eventually arrived on Friday, the best thing is that it came with a set of overalls - although they perhaps exagerrate my rotundness somewhat I do think they will add a lot to my credibility in the neighbourhood, problem is though that everyone elses' tractors are so much bigger than my tiny little "groundcare" machine, still, got to start somewhere.

On Sunday morning we took our two most forward horses (Foodbroker Founder and Fearless Footsteps) to Lucinda Russell's gallop for a serious piece of work, partly to bring them on and partly to see exactly where we were with them. I was very pleased with the former who really perked up for an away-day and will either run on the flat at Beverley on 22nd Sept or at Perth later that week, Fearless Footsteps just failed to really let herself down on the different surface but her wind sounded good and all being well she will run in the bumper at Perth on Thursday 24th. My intention is that both of them will be ridden in their races by daughter Lucy, she has worked hard throughout her gap year and spent many months with two of the world's great trainers in Aidan O'Brien and Michael Stoute, she did well with both of them and rode work with champion jockeys past, present and future. I hope to give her lots of chances this season as I am confident she will maintain her fitness and focus whilst studying at Edinburgh University.

Much of family life is presently focussed on driving lessons and tests etc, I am afraid I couldn't conceal my delight when Mrs A sat the theory test online and failed - tee hee hee - she has been known to criticise my driving from time to time, completely unjustified of course....

We are stepping up another gear this week with a couple more horses in and looking forward to the arrival of the new assistant trainer next weekend

N

The joy...

of training the horses at this time of year usually stems from the perfect late summer days, the slight crispness to the early morning air as the sun comes up and bathes the golden stubble fields in light. The warmth quickly breaks through, the horses coats gleam and the cold wet days of winter seem a distant memory..... aha, not so today or yesterday or virtually any day this damp August. I have seldom been as soaked through as I was after first lot this morning, there was a cold easterly wind driving the rain and everywhere is completely sodden. Still, at least we were able to use the grass gallops, usually too firm at this time of year they are riding perfectly now, our half dozen most forward horses did plenty of work on them this morning though I am beginning to worry that their regime is being determined by how much the trainer can manage rather than how much the horses can manage, they have been doing a lot of hill work and are very strong when given their heads on some flatter grass. 2nd lot were jogging on the all-weather and I caught this damp but cheery(?) bunch with my camera coming down the gallop later on

They are, in front from the right, Miss Colima (Shellie Wilson), Smart Cavalier (Emma Dick), Forcefield (Lucy Alexander) and an un-named Accordion 4yo (Kit Alexander), perhaps we should call him Indian Summer.....

hello

Although we haven't had a runner since Almost Blue won at Kelso in May we have been busy, we managed to turn most of the horses away to grass whilst the stables were all disinfected and repainted, more rubber floors were installed and all the water drinkers renewed. We now have 8 horses back in work, a couple more came in from Doncaster Sales last week and with one or two other things going on we look like being up to about 18 horses in training for the winter.

With the stable expanding I have been preoccupied throughout the summer with trying to appoint our first head lad/assistant trainer, I have been looking for a proper horseman with a real depth of experience in racing gained at the highest level. I received a massive number of applicants from, thanks to the internet, all over the globe which have taken a bit of sorting out. I now have verbally agreed terms with a man that I am greatly looking forward to working with, more about him later...

He will be in charge of our core team of 3 girls, Jacqui, Emma and Shellie all whom have now been here for at least 3 years and are extremely able and dedicated to their horses. They are supported by our long-standing work rider James and old fatso here who has also resumed riding out. Our pupil assistant Douglas has left to study to be a vet at Edinburgh but is still hoping to travel the horses to the races when available.

The biggest change of all though will be the imminent retirement of Jock who aged 82 and after 54 years of continual service at Kinneston finally sidled up to me and asked would I mind if he "finished up." His long service was marked in suitable fashion at Kinross Show on Saturday when he was presented with a long service medal by the Royal Highland Agricultural Society in front of a huge crowd enjoying glorious weather, it didn't stop him being out moving haylage at 6.45am on the Sunday morning though.....

N

Perth

Well, the sun shone for two days of good racing at Perth with a big crowd yesterday but sadly we have a return to February style conditions today, grim indeed. Things got off to a poor start for us at Perth on Wednesday evening with Amulree becoming worked up in the preliminaries before running with the choke out for a mile prior to weakening rapidly. Its very difficult to assess a horse properly when they behave like that but nevertheless it was disappointing. Smart Cavalier ran an allright sort of race and we learnt a bit more about him in his first handicap for us, likewise Foodbroker Founder who travelled and jumped well prior to being anchored by his top weight when the quickened for home. Yesterday Almost Blue put up a good effort to finish 3rd in his first race on the racecourse proper, he was always going to find 2m4f on the sharp side on quick ground round Perth but he ran well and would have been closer had he not clouted the second last. Sadly the ground had dried out too much to let Fearless Footsteps take her chance in the last.

With the weather remaining unsettled we will keep 5 horses on the go for another couple of weeks, running them wherever we can (Kelso on Wednesday I hope) before they join their friends out at grass.

Brrr

Hello

After an all too brief glimpse of spring the weather has been grim this week and this morning was just about the first time all winter that I had to delay first lot and put the horses on the walker whilst a storm abated - winter? - apparently it's May and needless to say I have already turned half a dozen horses out - they may need to come in again at this rate and plans to turn more out are now on hold.

Weather conditions were not dissimilar when we made our first ever raid on a Yorkshire area point-to-point earlier this week on Bank Holiday Monday, a long way it was too to Witton Castle but we were almost rewarded with a winner when Almost Blue came with a strong late run to finish 2nd in the Intermediate race, another 50 yards and I think he would have nailed the winner but it was great to see him continue in such good heart in what was I think his 7th run in 10 weeks. Foodbroker Founder then took little interest in the Ladies Open, finally dumping Lucy on the ground at the 3rd last - a completely different horse from the one that turned up 9 days earlier to win at Fife, most puzzling. The day before we had also been travelling with Contendo finishing 4th of 14 at the Lauderdale and Torche finishing down the field, retirement beckons for the latter.

This weekend we will have soft ground for the first time for a while and needless to say it is the wrong horses that are ready to run, nevertheless Smart Cavalier will probably take the long and winding road to Aspatria in Cumbria tomorrow and hopefully the ease in the ground will enable us to have a handful of runners at Perth next week - Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon, it's meant to be spring but wrap up well.

So the stockmarket is up again this morning and has risen 10 out of the last 12 trading sessions, the man on Radio 4 tells me we are back in a bull market, hmmm, it would be nice to think so but we are only back where we were on the 1st of January and at that stage the market had risen by a similar percentage since the gloom of early November, I don't remember many people calling a bull market then. The uniformity of the optimism emanating from financial commentators is now almost as deafening as the doom they were forecasting when the market was 25% lower two months ago which does make me nervous, however at least now we have had a "double bottom" and the mood in the media is greatly changed, however much one resents the media one cannot deny (unfortunately) the power it holds over the national psyche.... fingers crossed......

N