A lye in this morning, I don't get up until 6.30, on Sunday I feed round at 7 instead of 5.30 as in the week. I rode out Cavite Gamma and popped him over 6 flights of hurdles before cantering 7 furlongs on the grass gallop. He'll have a light canter tomorrow before he runs on Tuesday. Charlie has a 3 year old by Ballingary on his farm and he's managed to give himself a nasty cut low down on his near hind. I went over and helped clean up the wound and left his groom with 5 days of antibiotic.
Sophie, all the kids and I went to have lunch with Ralph and Izzy Beckett. I first met Ralph when he was assistant to Peter Walwyn, we ended up sharing a cottage in Ashbury for 6 years. That cottage could tell many stories! Ralph is a very good friend and is Sholto's godfather. I remember early on when Ralph started training, he took on Windsor House Stables when Peter Walwyn retired. Ralph came home for lunch, put his head in his hands on the kitchen table and asked me " what the F**K have I done", another owner had decided to place his horse with another trainer rather than leave it with Ralph. I tried to reassure him that he'd be fine and that he had to expect that and not to take it personally. He now trains over 100 horses and owns his training facilities.
I remember that afternoon with fondness, Ralph has done incredibly well and deserves all the success he has. He is fantastic with his owners and works very hard. His ratio of winners to runners is always high and to me there is no better gauge of a trainer than that statistic. Ralph was one of the first people to give me a leg-up when I set up my business and I'll always be grateful to him for that support in the early days. With the current economic climate Ralph doesn't buy as many yearlings as he used to on spec. It was nothing for him to buy 15-20 yearlings on spec and he'd send a large number of them to me to be broken- in.
I've just made some entires for Tweseldown and Larkhill but the weather could scupper them all. The forecast I've seen looks as if it's going to get very cold towards the end of the week.
