A horse to define…
A horse that gets you up before the alarm clock’s siren call. A horse that keeps you awake at nights as plans and options and ground concerns and that unexpected lame step or cough rage and race through the mind…
The good ones. So many dreams attached. Every Trainer dreams of “the one…”
Daryz beginning to look like “the one”. Only a 4 runner Prix Foy and no more than a cobweb blowing exercise ahead of balmy October Arc destiny, but the way he sauntered and swaggered home was eye-catching and more…
A time of year when long season can take hard toll, but Daryz looks to be peaking at precisely the right time. Monsieur Graffard has an awful lot to look forward to…
A time of year when the inevitable retirements through injury begin to fill too many paragraphs. The good ones, understandably and quite rightly, attract a headline or three. Estrange, Bow Echo, poor Galopin Des Champs, Trawlerman and more. But for every good one whose retirement from the game brings column inches, there are very many who slide off into enforced retirement without a nod from the wider world…
The hardest telephone calls to make are the ones that bring news of lame steps, broken bones and bowed tendons. Inevitable. Part and parcel. Never easy. Dreams torn asunder in a call that takes less time than a Nunthorpe to be run. Hard calls to make, not much fun to receive. But an inevitable part…
How the news is received tells plenty…
And when the call is done and the word “retirement” bandied around, fine and good and happy homes is the next priority. So many racehorses go on to excel in other disciplines. Polo. Happy hacking. Eventing. Soaring over high hedges and walls in the hunting field. Dressage. And much more…
Snaffles. “The Greatest View”….
Although when I spied similar views across Limerick back in the day, survival was at the forefront as opposed to how cool the vista was….
No runners for us today…
The weekend runners acquitted themselves well. Two 5th placings will not define a season or even a day. But NOW MAYBE (Ascot) and NESTHORN (York) danced well on decent stages, and both have plenty of good days ahead of them…….
