Field Of Light, ridden by Luke, with his owners looking on.
A miserable wet and windy morning has given way to quite a pleasant afternoon. The weather is nearly as unpredictable as my golf swing, which is set to get an airing at the Tattersalls charity golf day at Woburn this afternoon!
The Queen was in Newmarket this morning to oversee her horses trained in this part of the world. While we would love to train for Her Majesty, we had our own racing royalty in town with Roger and Samantha Weatherby, Peter and Pam Deal, Sir David and Jeni Sieff and Philippa Winter here for breakfast. Debby’s Diner passed its sternest test of the season with flying colours.
Peter, Pam, David and Jeni are part of the partnership who own Field Of Light, a Pastoral Pursuits three-year-old who made a pleasing debut at Windsor last month. He was one of nine entries we made this morning having been given options at Doncaster at Wolverhampton next Monday. Kitten’s Red, Ejbaar, Ted’s Secret, Rock Lobster and Scrutinise were the others who could also run on the same afternoon.
A few handicap changes to report. Sporting Prince was given a rather harsh-looking opening mark of 64, with similar comments applying to Thanaaya who was allotted 71. Dark Red was introduced at 75, while a couple of the disappointments from last week were dropped, with Kitten’s Red down 2lb to 64, Harlestone Hopes down 2lb to 66, Fieldsman down the same to 90 and Red Avenger down 1lb to 96.
No declarations or runners today and we are keeping everything crossed that Chester misses the predicted rain tomorrow with our Cup-bound duo much better suited to decent ground. Eight millimetres overnight has turned the Roodee good to soft, which would be fine, although we wouldn’t be keen on too much more.
I will be at Chester tomorrow with all of TTP’s enthusiastic owners set to meet for lunch in the Pavilion prior to racing, so we are in for an enjoyable afternoon regardless. The La Grange bandwagon marches merrily on!
Finally, best of luck to Chad, who leaves Britain for a few days tomorrow for two Group 1 rides at Doomben at the weekend. Hopefully his burgeoning record continues to thirve!
Back tomorrow. Ed.