Manuela with her trophy.
A glorious morning here at HQ today and the ground will be drying out all the time at The July Course, it is good ground now and despite there being plenty of moisture in the ground, it does dry out quickly.There does look to be a chance of a small amount of rain here on Thursday evening. The horses enjoyed the warmer weather today out at excercise as they undertook their usual Monday morning routine.
Both of our runners ran well on Saturday but frustratingly they were second and third. Sharakaah was slightly keen in the early stages of the mile Distaff at Sandown but she stuck to the task well and I was pleased with how she ran in third. We may look to drop her back to seven furlongs and I think she may improve for better ground too, the draw did not help on Saturday either. Dora's Field was second at Beverley as she tackled ten furlongs for the first time, she missed the break and took a while to warm to the task before finishing best of all and just going down by a head.
We head to Ripon this evening and Dutch Uncle and Michael's Mount are our two representatives. Dutch Uncle has had a short break since disappointing at Epsom and he is in very good form at home. This looks an easier race albeit it is still competitive and I hope he can get back on track and run a solid race. Michael's Mount has disappointed the last twice on fast ground and we are looking for an easier surface this evening for him. The ground has been drying rapidly over the last 48 hours and we hope the forecast evening rain will arrive before racing for him as the form of his Windsor win on easier ground has worked out well.
One of our Pupil Assistants Manuela Slamanig headed over to California late last week to ride in a valuable $40k Arab race, which was part of the HH Sheikh Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship for Arab horses. After her plane was turned around two hours into her first attempt to get there she could have been forgiven for fearing the worst but Manuela's luck changed and she drew the favourite RB Madymoiselle. Her filly was alert out of the gates and she tracked the leaders before finding plenty for pressure to win by just under three lengths at the line. As you can see she won a very impressive trophy and it was great that the long journey was not a wasted one.