10th February 2012

It has been one of those days when I haven't stopped. We woke up to halve an inch of snow but managed to get all the horses out on the gallop. We are very lucky that we don't have to touch a road to get to the gallop and are able to get there by crossing fields. I think some people can be too cautious in theses conditions and horses aren't stupid, they know when it's slippery underfoot and many old school horsemen back horses for the first time on concrete. They believe that it stops wild ones mucking about. Not something I 'd be happy to try.

I spent the afternoon making entries and getting horses sponsored for those ridiculous condition races. It is fine for me as I sponsor the horses and the owners just have to pay the £60 for registration. It doesn't make sense to me to have theses races, although, I do believe that the money goes back into the sport which has to be a good thing.

If the weather gets better I plan to send Chiquilline, Trouble Digger and Avidius Cassius to Whitwick Manor and Harris, Commodus and Silver Breese to Chaddesley Corbett next weekend. Sam Drinkwater will ride all apart from Silver Breese which will be ridden by James Seivwright. James works hards and I hope we can get a winner for him somewhere soon. It won't be fair on James or the owners to put him up on the babies until he's got more experience. Carl Evans reported in last week Weekender that he had watched a 4 year old maiden in Ireland last week. It went something like this - 9 runners 4 finished 5 didn't. The 4 that finished were ridden by experienced jockeys and the 5 that didn't by novice riders.

David Black a mate of mine for over 25 years is coming over from Ireland for the weekend, we first met when we worked for Kim Bailey as 16 year olds. David often comes over for the p2ps and sadly this weekend its all off so I'll find him some jobs to do instead. He can look after his goddaughter Panda who is desperate to face paint him into a lion.