That Time Of Year Again...
So I am sitting at my desk with my nose blocked and my eyes streaming again, safe to say I despise this time of year and the misery that the pollen brings with it. The past few runners have not had the recovery I have been used to in our horses and stupidly I had gotten used to them running consistently and regularly as I thought they should. How could I forget that every year we have a problem with tree pollen? Well I did and conveniently forgot the misery that goes with it, even when I was convinced I was getting a rotten cold and realised it was hayfever, I didn't think the horses would be affected.
However I have finally gotten my head round it all again and everything is being nebulised twice a day (joy) and I have even had to buy another nebuliser (not cheap but a brilliant bit of kit!), although Marmite isn't overly impressed at the colour...
We have had a few runners over the past couple of weeks and whilst I hadn't been overly happy with them, they have completed and come back in one piece.
BT (Katarrhini) ran on Monday at Stratford and unfortunately she had lost her confidence after unseating at Chepstow, hardly surprising because she came back lame. However she came sound quickly and we had to run her sooner than I would have liked, so the owner knew whether she was worth putting in foal this year. She jumped too carefully and lost lengths over the race, she finished but didn't show me enough to bother carrying on with. Its a shame for her and her owner that she has had such a rough old time. Plumpton was a great run until she was pulled up and Chepstow she was travelling so well and making lengths at her fences, the law of the sod intervened and she ejected Ian Popham, scared herself half to death and unfortunately she has had so many physical issues, she was probably never going to allow herself to let down i a race. At least I can be proud that she has never stopped eating, learnt not to hang like a gate and will go home with condition still on and in one piece!
Free one had his first run over hurdles and with his history of standing in the starting stalls and not racing I was a little worried. To be fair he looked well up for jumping off but the new rules of walking into the start definately gave him time to think and he gave away 10 lenghts at the start to the rest. However he did jump off and only made one mistake at the last, Lizzy Kelly gave him a great ride and he came back in one piece and ate up. He seems happy since his run and the telling time will be Monday when he goes to Kempton back over hurdles...Will he or won't he jump off?
We have been teaching By the Fireside (Impy) to jump and Frankie had her first jumping lesson with me, they both did really well and Impy has been up to Lambourn this week to have his first school over the hurdles, which he did really nicely. He will probably run in another bumper before he goes over hurdles.
Finally we have decided to take Still William to a lot of horse shows this summer to get him used to the crowds and tannoys, hopefully in future he will learn to settle and relax at the races, he has to really because he doesn't have a future as a racehorse if he doesn't. So now I have no excuse not to take the WIbble off to finally do something, we started this morning at Rectory Farm and Bill behaved beautifully being ridden round By Ashleigh, he got to see lots of lorries and horses, no tannoy today as we just went for the clear round.
Wibble was great and actually behaved very well, considering he has only jumped 3 times in the past year probably at home and not seen any bright scary jumps. He still had moments of ignorance and thinking he knows best but on the whole he was a very good boy so I am now filling in my forms to affiliate him...Brave pants need to come out now!
