A busy day today with no time to blog, so just a quick one. It was a pretty desperate weekend with some of my best hopes for the season running poorly with no good excuses.  Marine Boy ran a respectable fourth on Friday, but I’d hoped he was better than that.  Tom’s analysis was fairly sober – “he’s probably not as good …

I had a big day planned yesterday with four runners at Warwick. I’d done my homework on the racing the night before and booked up a car for the day – I also had my blog post written but I held back as I wasn’t sure if Maxwell Hawke was going to run. Warwick were calling it good to firm …

I’m just back from a road trip to Chester. I caught the 10:10 from Euston with Mick and David O’Reilly, one of the BF lawyers and a fellow pro-claimer.  We caught a cab at the other end, which we shared with a couple of old Irish boys – we had to walk the last bit. As we approached the course I realised …

A new member of the string arrived on Monday when Veiled Beauty finally foaled down a filly.  We hadn’t known what sex to expect – generally colts are preferred as they are more valuable but I was very happy to have another filly.  She was a good size and appears to be a very nice foal.  I have three filly …

A long and fruitless day on Wednesday. I dropped the girls off early and came back to the farm.  At 9:30 Sarah, my personal trainer, tipped up and we went for a run – she told me that she is going to be on TV soon in a series called “Fat pets and their fat owners” helping a few fat pet …

Good and bad yesterday.  Quaker Parrot ran no sort of race, but we were fairly unworried.  She fell out of the stalls in a heap and never got moving – she’ll learn from the experience and will run better next time.  Tikka Masala was more of a concern – she ran no sort of race and we couldn’t explain it …

A big day on Saturday with Swindon winning at home and guaranteeing their survival in League 1 this year.  We’ve not had an easy time of it at STFC – we were hoping to go up this year but it didn’t work out and we were in real danger of relegation despite a goal difference of only -3.  It’s an …

A weak day on Saturday with no winners – costly as I felt good about a couple of my picks and got stuck in.  It was the first day of the flat when I really spent time checking out the form and annoying to have decimated my account. I’ve put it right since with a series of winning bets.  On Sunday …

… to give up gambling.  Actually I haven’t given up – I planned to but when I came back from holiday there was so much racing going on that I got stuck straight into it.  I went to Newbury yesterday – the third days racing in a week.  Tom Dascombe had taken a box, and I also popped in on …

A disappointing run from Marine Boy today but I’m prepared to forgive it.  We had a chat about tactics beforehand and Tom was very much of the view that the horse needed cover to stop him running too free – Richard was to drop him in somewhere in the middle and produce him with a couple of furlongs to go.  …