I went on a bit of a tour last week and I got a selection of photos through yesterday, so here we go. First up – Baldovina’s foal by Dutch Art, only 2 days old;
Described as very nice for a first foal. Second up we have my 2yo Rock of Gibraltar / Duchy of Cornwall filly in training with Brian Meehan;
She’s just got better and better as time has gone on. Third we have one of my Japanese purchases recently arrived at Watership Down – Deep Impact / Muncie ;
… and finally another Japanese purchase – this time Kurofune / Histoire ;
She’ll probably be completely white in years to come – as far as I know she’s the first of Kurofune’s progeny to leave Japan. He’s a dirt stallion and she might end up looking pretty butch.
I had a good if rather busy weekend – it’ll be a busy week as half-term is on us. Jane and I went up to town last night for a 40th of one of the foundation team at Betfair – I love meeting up with the old guys as I feel such a strong bond with them, but it was also quite thought provoking.
Most of the original BF team have moved on now. Ed Wray is now Chairman, Mark Davies is still there and I’m still on the board and going in from time to time – I have three BF days this coming week but it’s normally much less than that. The other four members of the foundation team (such as it was) have moved on, but I’m in regular touch with all of them.
Two of them work full time for charities. One isn’t working at all at the moment. John, who had his 40th on Saturday, tried working in a couple of startups after Betfair, but after a fair bit of soul searching he recently decided to become a maths teacher. I had a chat with him about it.
He said that Betfair had been an amazing experience, but it had ruined him for anything else in business. Other ventures had been disappointing by comparison and just weren’t satisfying, so he had moved on to the next stage in life – giving it back.
He was very happy and very positive, just as he was during all the years I worked with him. The early years of Betfair were tough and very stressful, but it was exhilirating and also great fun at times.