Wednesday 14th October 2015

The clear bright days we having at the moment are certainly lovely but the weather is holding up many National Hunt horses around the country.

The Lambourn grass gallops aren’t open due to lack of rain, the turf is near good to firm and you can’t gallop winter jump horses on that. It’s the same in a lot of places with champion trainer Paul Nicholls informing he’s having to use the AW gallops at the moment for the same reasons.

Who would have thought in mid October we’re still racing on quick ground? We need rain.

The Value Racing Club winter horses are working away in prep for the new season, our Imperial Cup winner Ebony Express had an away day yesterday at Wolverhampton racecourse. Ebony did 3 laps of the track and had a good blowout, the outing gets horses used to travelling again and the change of scenery can only be a good thing.

The ongoing Newmarket sales work is extremely time consuming but I’ve now gone through all 1677 lots. Just over 100 horses are on the first shortlist but half of these will go once form and breeding have been looked at in more detail.

A list of 20 odd will be finalised in the next two weeks, touch wood a few of these pass our vetting and fall into budget on the day.