17/04/22

Although our first two-year old runner of the year didn't get off to the best possible start with victory, she ran a very eye-catching race and gave her owners plenty of promise for the future.
Amberdaay had been going very professionally at home and certainly looked ready for a run on what she had shown us on the gallops. You never really know how good your bunch of babies are until they take on other horses at the races so we were very much testing the waters by running her at Nottingham on Saturday.
Having done all their exercise at home on the quiet Newmarket Heath, going to the races for the first time can be a bit of a shock to some horses and Amberdaay certainly seemed to get a bit of stage fright on her debut as she went to post with a little buck and then was slowly away from the stalls. She got left behind a bit and I must admit I was thinking the day was turning into a disaster as she was five lengths detached with two furlongs to go. Thankfully the penny dropped inside the final furlong and she passed three others, including the favourite and a well fancied runner owned by The Queen to finish a close fifth. Bar the winner, she was probably the biggest eye catcher of the race and hopefully she will have come on a tonne for the run.
It does mean that we have a bit of a gauge for the other two-year olds in the yard now and we will definitely be waiting for the six furlong races to start before any of them come out in public as they haven't quite got the speed for five furlongs judged on Amberdaay's run.

There was more promise for the future the day before at Chelmsford as The Mouse King ran a very encouraging comeback on just his second career star whilst Queen's Company will also improve a lot for her reappearance and she is sure to win this season.

We have two entries at Beverley this week on Thursday but neither will run as we'll start Stintino Sunset over six furlongs now and Engrave wouldn't go all that way on her own.
So our sole representative then will be Mrs Meader at Leicester on Saturday. She made a very nice comeback herself at Nottingham a couple of weeks ago when fourth over an inadequate one mile trip and she will be much better over a bit further. She doesn't like firm ground though so the going will have to be good for her to run.