Dore Unlucky At Hereford

Unfortunately Vertige Dore fell at the ninth fence in the novices' chase at Hereford yesterday afternoon.  It was one of those unlucky looking falls - he jumped the fence well enough but just crumpled on landing.  He had jumped and travelled well enough up until that point to suggest that he would have been involved in the finish and hopefully compensation awaits before too long.

We have two runners at Newton Abbot this afternoon, Bathwick Scanno (Tom Scudamore) in the juvenile hurdle at 1.50pm and Tigger in the handicap hurdle at 4.00pm - he will be ridden by young Frank Hayes who is looking for his first winner over jumps.

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I enjoyed reading Mark Gillard's comments in today's Racing Post - he says that his old boss once told him "If things are going well have a drink, and if things are going badly have two drinks!"...I wonder how many under fire Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has had?!

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Now that we are back, I thought that you might like to see a couple of photographs of our recent trip to Deauville in the north of France.  One of the pictures features Simon "Davey" Crockett putting away a few oysters at one of the receptions - they didn't work on either account...he didn't find any pearls, while I will leave you to work out the other one!  The other is of my great hero, legendary champion jockey Lester Piggott - he still looks the same as back when he was riding and he is probably only a pound or two heavier.  Lester did look a little bit concerned, but I can assure you that I was not trying to steal his wallet!