25/07/21

It was another week of good runs even if we couldn't find a breakthrough winner. All bar one of the horses who raced this week came home in the prize money with Smokey Malone going closest when finishing a tight second at Yarmouth on Thursday.
The heatwave has been and gone so I think that's it for our summer this year! Even though it has cooled down, we haven't seen much rain and could do with a good soaking as the fields are starting to turn a bit brown.

I don't know if you managed to watch the BBC Panorama programme called "The Dark Side of Horseracing" which was aired last Monday but I felt it was trying to cast racing in an extremely bad light when most of the programme was about poor practice in abattoirs. Unsurprisingly it was Gordon Elliott who was named and shamed as one trainer who sent horses to slaughter and surely this is the final nail in his coffin as a licensed trainer. How can a man who has dragged the sport through the dirt twice be allowed to have a licence again? He obviously has little regard for his horses and I was pleased to see a few more owners remove their horses from his yard after the programme was aired.
Thankfully in this country we take pride in finding our horses good homes after they retire from racing and regular readers of this site will have seen updates on our retired horses from their new homes. Racehorses can excel outside of the sport thanks to their experiences in racing which means most things in the wider world won't be new or scary to them.
We are lucky to have a bit of land at our yard so we can take retired horses back when their owners can't manage them anymore and we have a great network of people to rehome horses to thanks to our reputation of having relaxed and well-behaved horses.

Back to the racing and we are in action on Monday at Lingfield on the turf with Cabrini. She ran well on handicap debut last time but the one mile trip seemed to stretch her so dropping to seven furlongs this time should be ideal. I think the handicapper gave her an initial rating a bit too high but she could still go close off it.

Yarmouth races on Tuesday and we will be there with a couple of raiders despite the ground being very firm.
Queen's Company showed promise on her debut but came back a little stiff after it so has been given some time to recover. She has the ability to win a race of this kind but we have managed to find a really competitive heat so we may have to put this run down to experience. I hope she can show up well nonetheless.
Accompanying her to the seaside will be Piranhadrama. She ran a lot better stepped up in trip last time and if she can build on that, she could be in the placings once again.

Rounding off the week will be Spanish Mane at Lingfield on Saturday. She has been steadily coming back to form and ran a lot better last time. She has won at this course and is coming down to a winnable rating so I think she should have a chance.