Another beautiful day. Pretty much a routine day for the horses. They either cantered or went into the school for flat work. All the 3 year old stores are backed and riding around the school and all are doing it well. A few appear to be more forward than others but that is to be expected.
I read that Folkstone and Hereford racecourses will close at the end of 2012, the whole country will be a block of flats soon. It is terrible that these courses are having to close and I suppose it is a sign of the times. Even if they were breaking even I expect that the ruthless business men that own them would be unsatisfied and still close them down. There is no emotion involved with these guys and money is their only focus. I'm sure they need it!
Folkstone is not one of my favourite tracks but I did ride a winner there. I can see how that place struggles. I went there with Cavite Gamma last year and excluding the connections of the horses running the crowd was very poor. We had some fun drives home from Folkstone, in fact we once had a very amusing drive there, on arrival one of our crew who shall remain nameless had to have a nap to sober up before riding! His father always blamed me and once told me he was going to shoot me if I continued to lead his son astray. I assured him that his son took no leading!
Hereford though was a different matter, I went there with Cavite Alpha and there appeared to be a good crowd there. I had plenty of time to people watch and got the feeling that many regulars attended. I feel sad that it is closing, the local crowd reminded me of being at Wincanton and I remember thinking how nice it was.
