I laughed when I read the papers this morning. Two years ago I invested in a low budget film called “Morris – a life with bells on” – these things don’t often pay out and I fully expected to lose my investment. They produced the film but they didn’t find a distributor and I assumed that that was the end of …
New kid on the block
A new addition this morning – Baldovina foaled a bay filly. She is described to me as a very good first foal – she’s by Dutch Art. I’ve been hemmed in by snow for the last couple of days – I finally managed to escape late this afternoon. The farm looks amazing – totally white. The children are still off school …
All part of the game
Big Paddy died on Saturday night – he was put down after one of his intestines burst. Colic might sound like a bit of indigestion but it’s a very serious condition – I’ve had three horses go down with it now and only one of them survived. It’s a blow, and a terrible blow to Nick on the back of …
Tough Game
It was a truly depressing day today. Nick Gifford rang late on with three pieces of bad news. Killaghy Castle had a fatal fall at Sandown. He was a lovely horse and a great prospect and I was very sad to hear this news. Theophrastus is injured and is a highly unlikely runner for tomorrow. It’s been one injury after another …
Experimenting with drugs
An exciting day yesterday as my three fillies arrived at Watership Down from Japan. They flew from Japan to Amsterdam and were boxed the remainder. There’s a lot of risk in this type of journey and they seem to be injury free which is a relief. I’ll give them a few days to settle in before I go down to …
Boredom relief
I had a terrible day betting yesterday, and for no good reason. I was alone in the house, bored and with too much money in my account – a recipe for disaster. If I only ever bet when I had a strong conviction then I’d do very well, but I’m succumbing to “boredom relief” type betting too often at the …
Hit and hope
Quality racing today but tough. I’ve been through the various cards and I haven’t found anything that I would consider standout. I’ve decided to follow David Pipe – he’s been in no form this season but he has plenty of good horses in the stable and he’s been getting the odd winner. He has eight runners today around the country. I’ve always …
If you can keep your head when all about you…
With so little racing on I’ve been watching the financial markets again, and it’s still carnage. Our banks are slowly being nationalised, although in Barclays case they could end up being sold to Arab interests. The biggest casualty of all is sterling – close to parity against the Euro now and at a 23 year low agaist the dollar having lost almost a third of …
Not in love with the game
I’m busy today with site meetings around the farm – we’ve got builders everywhere at the moment and the place is a mess. I’ve got one runner today – Viscaya goes in the 2:30 at Wolver. She was a speculative claim a while back – she’d shown a little form, something was clearly amiss and if we could put it …
Chocolate rules
This dark chocolate diet is amazing – I expected results but I didn’t expect them to come so quickly. Yesterday, with my newly supercharged brain, I had what probably ranks as my best betting day ever. My first three bets won at 50-1, 12-1 and 12-1, and I came back at the end of the day for one more large and reckless …