Otto.
A reasonably warm and pleasant day in store Stateside.
I arrived in Kentucky yesterday evening and an exciting week lies ahead.
An absorbing weekend of racing that took us through more tension, excitement and emotion than a Shakespearean drama. It was truly magnificent from start to finish, although commiserations to the connections of Simple Verse, who can certainly count themselves unfortunate, and condolences to Tom Dascombe, Michael Owen and all the team involved with Brown Panther – what a wonderful racehorse who did not deserve such a cruel twist of fate.
On a personal level, Pyla gained her second win in succession at Bath and is proving progressive under the right conditions. She was in front for long enough and could have done with a stronger pace to aim at so we are hopeful she hasn’t finished winning just yet.
Ejbaar and Zarwaan both lost nothing in defeat at Lingfield and the latter, although not easy to place, has not run a bad race all season and it would be wonderful to get another win into him.
We saddle one at Brighton this afternoon with Justice First lining up in the six furlong handicap. He stumbled at the start last time and hated the ground, but it should be perfect for him today and this is his trip. He has a nice draw and his mark is probably ok given the horse who nabbed him on his penultimate run at Newmarket has won twice since.
Three declarations for Wednesday with Vivre Pour Vivre, Prince Gagarin and Arethusa heading to Sandown. A number of entries for the weekend as well including Alqubbah in the Group 3 Firth Of Clyde at Ayr.
I’ll leave it there as prep for the sale beckons, but one final note: congratulations to Vicky, our yardie, who ran the Great North Run in a personal best of 2:37 yesterday! An amazing achievement and she’s apparently not too lame this morning!
Ed.