We sent two runners off to Nottingham on Wednesday and both ran with credit. The race was run under the Fegentri banner - for those who don't know, this is a worldwide amateur jockey series where riders from all over the globe race in each other's country. I was lucky enough to represent GB myself back in the riding days and, as a result, like to support the races when they come to our shores.
The jockey allocation is done by random ballot and the standard of riding can vary as jockeys from countries such as France and Germany get a lot more opportunities than those from USA, for instance.
Some of the guesswork was taken out of things though as my son Ross got to ride Silver Alliance and I know how he rides but The Ducking Stool was given an Italian jock.
When his bio describes him as a 41 year old salesman who has only ridden 11 winners, we were sweating about how well he could ride but luckily enough he was pretty competent and manged to finish fourth after a slowish start. Silver looked like winning with two furlongs to race but the 1m2f distance on soft ground caught him out and he finished just behind Ducky in 6th. There's an ideal race for him over 1m1f next week and I think that should be right up his street.
Hopefully the horsebox will be out a bit more on the road this week as the weather shouldn't affect plans too much with most of our contenders running on the all-weather.
At Kempton on Thursday we could be busy with possibly three runners in the same race. It's unlikely they'll all run but the problem is I'm finding it very hard to get my two-year olds into maiden races as they are so over-subscribed at the minute. As a result, they've got to run in a claimer but at least in this grade they have a chance.
Believe In Me (below left) has recovered from her flu very well and should be spot on for the run. She can be a bit quirky and needs to make the running so hopefully the draw will be kind to us and she can get an inside stall.
Didn't I Do Well (right) ran well to finish third on his debut and he should have a great chance having come on a lot for the run.
I was planning to let Wiggo (below left) make his debut at Ascot this weekend but he didn't quite come to hand in time so we had to scrap the plan. His bit of work on Saturday though was great and he too is in the claimer at Kempton. He will be running off a low weight and can hopefully emulate his namesake by leading the peloton home!
Sheila's Heart (right) only did his first bit of work last week so is learning all the time and he too went well. He is quite big for a two year old so we will probably give him a couple of educational runs this season as he should get better with age.
Saturday also marked the return to serious work for Generous Genella (below left). This was only her first gallop but she went phenomenally well and has got our hopes up that she can win a race off her current low rating. The only problem is that she has disappointed us on the racetrack before so we may run her in a hood, hoping that it is the race day noise that effects her performance and the headgear may just see her use the ability we know she's got.
No Such Number (nearside) has had to miss a few engagements recently due to the soft ground but the forecast looks promising for him to run at York on Friday. It's a valuable race and we think he still has a few pounds in hand with the handicapper so hopefully the rain stays away.
Sandwiched between these two was Attain who I rode. He went well in blinkers last time and will run in them again
One horse who I don't mind the ground being soft for is Kampai. She heads to Brighton on Tuesday with ideal conditions and this was the same track where she almost caused a 66/1 shock earlier in the year so hopefully she can go one better than that day.
Khajaaly will be partnering her down there. I'm not too sure about the ground for him but he is well treated on the turf and it's definitely worth taking a chance. He goes best at Wolverhampton during the winter so anything he does can certainly be improved upon in the coming months.
On a completely different note, our Saturday nights have been injected with some interest after Union J made it through to the X Factor live finals. One of the members (Jamie Hamblett, below left) is familiar to us as we used to live next door to him when his father and I both worked at the British Racing School. This was a long time ago though - some of the kids we trained at the time included Paul Hanagan and Royston Ffrench!
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