The Rowley Mile this morning
It was a misty start to proceedings today and it was hard to spot the horses as they did a piece of work on the Watered Gallop during first lot. I was happy with what I did see and we are building now towards the last quarter of the season. The Ebor meeting is always a highlight in the calendar and there is some fantastic racing to start the meeting off today. Postponed travelled so well at Epsom that it will be a surprise if ten furlongs proves to be an issue for him in the Juddmonte International. The Great Voltigeur will also be a race I have a keen eye on with The St Leger ante-post favourite Idaho in action.
We have had a quiet week but we have two horses declared for York tomorrow and Trip To Paris has been declared for Friday where he will face six rivals in the Lonsdale Cup. We then hope to have one or two runners on the Knavesmire on Saturday too. York gets this name from pre-medieval times when the racecourse was common pasture land that belonged to the city and interestingly Dick Turpin was hung there in 1739.
The Olympics has been fantastic to watch and after a slow start the Lottery funding has once more reaped rewards. We will not be far behind the London games medal total where we had a lot more athletes competing. Laura Trott was phenomenal yesterday and she is proof that technique counts for a lot as her legs are so much smaller than the majority of her opponents. Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro were close to perfection once more when winning the Individual Dressage on Monday and hardly anything has gone wrong for Team GB in recent days with the Gymnastics team catching fire. Rio has once more inspired and the more young people that get into sport the better, it has been a shame that many venues have not been full but there have been less empty seats as the Games have progressed.