Surf by name...

With conditions here continuing to preclude stronger work we took three horses to the West Sands at St Andrews this morning, they may run at Ayr's New Year meeting but the forecast makes it look a little unlikely, an away day will have done them the world of good and the plan is for another three to go tomorrow, happy New Year and thank you for reading....

Forcefield and Isla Pearl Fisher

Isla Pearl Fisher



Northern Flame



Heading back with the Angus hills in the distance

Northern Flame makes a splash

Heading away from the town with the R&A and Scores in the background

More yuck

The "thaw" is proving agonisingly slow and cold damp fog does little to move things forward or raise the spirits; the entire farm (including most of the all weather gallop) seems to have turned into a giant frozen slab coated with a thin film of slippery sludge, we managed to make a little headway in the round school and the horses walked, trotted and cantered there and remarkably they did a reasonable amount of exercise, not good conditions though and it would be very helpful if temperatures would rise enough to let the current frost come out of the ground before the next one arrives otherwise we will end up with a sort of frost sandwich which will be very odd.  I think we have until Friday night before things turn a little colder again..
Having been on a few other farms in the last couple of days we can take some pride in our yard being comparitively frost and ice free relative to the quite extraordinary conditions elsewhere and although the plumber is in most days to fix little niggles we have avoided serious flooding.  One benefit of the collapse of the postal & courier systems last week leading to the non-delivery of my Xmas shopping is that there is ongoing excitement whenever a courier's van comes up the drive, they still seem well behind and I am now wondering whether the smoked lobster delivered today having left North Uist on the 20th will be edible, can't really bear the thought of binning it..............

Church on time...

Well, I trust that everyone that bothers to read this has had a happy and peaceful Christmas and that if they chose to attend a Church service that they didn't suffer the fate of family Alexander who tipped up for the 11am  service on Christmas Day to discover the congregation milling around outside having enjoyed the lessons, prayers and carols for the 10am service; of course Mrs A thought they were all about to go in so compounded the embarrasment by making me park and all of us troop over to the church to feel a proper bunch of clots, we could at least have just driven on incognito, at least for once it wasn't my fault...  such was the family appetite for religion that we drove round looking for an alternative and ended up in a Roman Catholic "gig" in Leslie, I don't think any danger of any of us heading for a Blair style conversion ..
Anyway horses here all well and same exercise Boxing Day and today, big warm up in the school and a couple of gentle spins up the all weather, conditions truly awful though - another 3 inches of wet snow together with a painfully gradual thaw has produced a revolting and treachourous mixture of ice, slush and mud, however the main thing is it's definitely a THAW after the best part of a six week freeze up, so I am hopeful that in another week we might be able to go racing, I have therefore made entries at Musselburgh (going to stuggle I think) on Saturday for Native Coll and Isla Patriot, Ayr on Sunday (must be a chance) for Seeking Power, Forcefield and Northern Flame and Ayr on Monday (surely a good chance!) for Isla Pearl Fisher and Native Coll.  None of them have had a proper piece of work for six weeks but they were fit before and we've kept them going, it will be fascinating to see if they have retained their fitness - let's hope we have the chance to find out.
Season's Greetings
N 

Happy Christmas!

We had the all-weather gallop back in action this morning and all the horses had a 30 minute warm up in the school, then cantered three and a half times up the gallop and warmed down back in the school for 15 minutes, surface not perfect but good enough and they all had a decent workout.  Christmas Day means that they all have a quiet one tomorrow with an hour on the walker, full exercise will resume on Sunday when I will be hoping to make some entries for Musselburgh and Ayr over New Year.... Happy Christmas!

at last

Christmas tree executed at 08.05 am this morning, heaved onto roof of Toyota and Mrs A valiantly stood on the footrails and somehow clung on to the tree and the car whilst I whisked it back down to ensure we were on time for first lot.  Pressure off.  All horses then had a long trot in the school prior to a trot up the side of the gallop and then four steady canters, pretty treacherous conditions but plenty of exercise, I think we will have a go on the gallop itself tomorrow. After that with trains mostly cancelled/suspended/withdrawn (they all mean the same thing - just Network Rail's varying ways of informing you that the train isn't running!) a first time experience on the park & ride to Open Platform Xmas lunch (http://www.openplatform.co.uk/) at Oloroso (http://www.oloroso.co.uk/) - transport all worked perfectly and a splendid lunch where I certainly held my own against stiff competition in the consumption stakes and back home in time to pick up the tail end of evening stables (hic).
Greatly struck by what a wonderful cosmopolitan feel Edinburgh has these days, unrecognisable from 20 years ago, not sure if devolution has helped this or it is just the passage of time, the quid pro quo seems to be a commensurate increase in the numbers of homeless and beggars, very poignant at this time of year, the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" appears to grow all the time giving an almost Dickensian air, surely society can do better..

Under pressure...

Back to work in the snow today and all the horses were out for well over an hour covering a lot of ground walking, trotting and cantering steadily.  Underfoot conditions weren't great but by cutting back to two lots it means they can have a really good long exercise, they seem well and are certainly fresh but would greatly benefit from some faster work which looks unlikely at least until early next week.  The artificial surfaces seem in good shape under the snow but as soon as we work on them we will let the frost in so I think we think we will try to muddle along in the snow for another couple of days as temperatures are so low that the water buckets start to freeze over within 20 minutes of being filled....
Failed on the Christmas tree front, couldn't prise my wallet open and didn't fancy driving down the motorway with it strapped to the roof, will have to venture out here sometime very soon, pressure is mounting....

Plans....

And so, a few days away catching up and celebrating with family in Northumberland and here in Scotland, interspersed with a couple of hours back here on Sunday afternoon to put the new snowplough into action and a sad and poignant farewell to Alan Normile at the service of Thanksgiving for his life in Perth yesterday. 
The gallop here was operational on Saturday & then all surfaces were put back level prior to the arrival of the snow on Sunday, given the absence of imminent racing I decided to repeat the routine of last week and give the horses 3 days on the walker.  The plan is to start riding them all again tomorrow and with plenty of good riders about for Xmas we will get them all out in two longish lots; the way I see it there won't be any racing in the North until the New Year so we will now focus on having them fit and ready in 10 days time, not sure whether we will manage to get any faster work into them but we will do as much as we can.
Great news that "AP" won the Sports Personality of the Year award, a thoroughly worthy winner and also good news that the BHA have finally published the race programme for Q1 2011, although I've loved my few day away I am very happy to be back on the job and part of that will be making plenty of plans for the horses for what I am sure will be a mild and open January!  Let's hope so, the long range forecast suggests there might be an improvement by this time next week; like most places it is extremely cold & we have had an unprecedented range of problems caused by freezing water pipes etc, even the cat's water bowl in my office has frozen, by the time the thaw arrives (when? ed) we will have had a whole month with temperatures only making it above freezing on two days, I'm going to go and buy a Christmas Tree now, first time in my life but the alternative prospect of harvesting my own this year is not very enticing...