So much for July, and it is rather topical that the abandonment levy debate is underway at the moment given the July abandonments taking place for the second year in a row. There shouldn’t be a debate after the last two weekends of the value of the new proposals being put forward.
If Nicky had entered at Cumwinton we would have been idle for the second week in a row, and been particularly frustrated. It now looks that some warmer weather is appearing finally.
Meanwhile at the other end of the country Harry Philips, one of Freddy’s owners had to pull out his racehorse Risk from running at Newmarket because the ground was too hard.
As it stands we are now going to complete to July without any runs for my horses at all, though a combination of a ballot decision and the weather, which clearly isn’t ideal, and more of that later.
We had driven over to Auchinleck in the afternoon, with some trepidation, as the weather forecast was bad for the Friday evening.
As we headed through ever increasingly wet weather, with low cloud and virtually zero visibility through the Coal mining villages of Ayr, there seemed a degree of inevitability about what was going to happen.
The Enterkine hotel was written up in various guide books though I would query that.
The food was good, with some imaginative menu selections, some of which didn’t quite work, in contrast to the Burlington at the Devenshire Arms which was faultless.
We were supplied with the wrong room key, the main light in one of the rooms didn’t work and for some reason the pillowcases were omitted in our room. This was in an annexe rather than the main building.
At breakfast the waitress had to be called back five times for things that had been forgotten, but they did allow us to check out a day early when it became obvious that both days were cancelled.
We are not sure about this choice for next year should Auchinleck proceed.
Back from dinner we got the news that we had thought obviously was coming that day one was off, and a decision was set to be made on day 2 by 11.
Nicky had made it all the way to Rowallen with a full load, and turned round and went home for a six hour round trip.
The Galbraith bandwagon had made it as far as the Edinburgh bypass before having to turn around.
The rain was pretty relentless until the middle of the night, and I have to commend BE on getting the decision out a couple of hours before the previous deadline about the cancellation of the second day.
This allowed Nicky to divert to the St Boswells Show and the working hunter classes.
We took the opportunity to visit Culzean castle on the Ayr coast which was spectacular before heading home via Auchinleck Estate.
After Scone 2, Thirlestane, Tweseldown, Gatcombe (1) and Burnham which all experienced vile conditions, I wanted to see the state of the ground as I hadn’t been to this location before.
We got there about 3pm and it was readily apparent why the cancellation had happened as both cars and lorries would have been completely stuck, and tractors would have had a hard time pulling anything out, which is before any discussion of the safety situation. Pictures attached of the vehicle entry area which is pretty conclusive and representative of the deluge from the day before.
So the upshot is that both Freddy and Mistral head off to the British Novice Championships not having competed for a month, which is hardly ideal preparation, and it just depends what genie pops out of the box on the day, as regards their temperament. Meanwhile Trig Point also will end up not competing for five weeks as he has been balloted out at Strathallan, again not ideal for a quality horse , and one hopes he doesn’t lose momentum after the excellent string of results he has put together.
The early warning of the cancellation did allow Nicky a detour and again Trig Point came up trumps.
The Newtown St Boswells & District Farmers Show was being held on the Saturday and Nicky was able to enter a few horses for the Hunter Classes
Trig Point Jumped Clear and then by winning the Final overall has now qualifies for the Scottish Working Hunter Championship Final at Blair (so he does get there but not to event this year).
So his excellent run of form does continue,
Roll on August..Next report from Gatcombe…
No comments:
Post a Comment