26/03/23

The weeks usually fly by when you're working in the yard and there's always something to look forward to which makes time seem to speed up even more. However, it has seemed like a long week for me and John as we've had to make do without any gas supply to the house - this meant no heating, hot water or oven to cook with. 
We realised we had no gas and went to check out the tank which supplies us in the garden and it said it was 75% full. When we rang Callor Gas they said it had been on that reading for the past 12 months so the meter was definitely broken. It took a few days for them to send someone to fix the meter but it took over a week to get a delivery of gas which made life very difficult.
Thankfully we didn't have a cold spell and the yard doesn't use any gas so the horses weren't affected. We had to make do borrowing showers off the kids and John's recent purchase of an air fryer came in very handy!

The turf season kicks off next weekend at Doncaster and we have the team raring to go with the first trickle of runners hitting the track in the coming days. Like most years, I expect that they will all improve for their first runs as it's going to be a long season so there's no need for them to be fully wound up straight away.

We have a double header on Wednesday, starting with Heer's Sadie at Lingfield. She has not been beaten far throughout the winter without looking like winning. The hold-up tactics seem to have seen her in a better light recently so hopefully she can finish close again with luck in running.
Later that day at Kempton, Hurricane Kiko makes his seasonal debut at Kempton. He was a winner at Chelmsford when we last saw him and we gave him a long winter break to strengthen up as he was always going to improve for it. His work at home has been very good and I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do this season.

Hopefully we will be at Doncaster for the opening day of the season on Saturday with Mrs Meader having her first run of the year. She doesn't handle firm ground so conditions will need to be right but it'll be great to have her back racing after a very successful 2022. She is usually a bit fresh on her first run back so this will blow away the cobwebs for the coming months.
Smokey Malone also runs on Saturday but at Chelmsford. He has had a bit of time off but is not a hard horse to get fit so should be ready to run well, he just needs lots of luck in running to suit his hold-up style.