Four Runners At Newbury

It looks like being an exciting day's action with four meetings taking place - three over the sticks at Newbury, Doncaster and Musselburgh as well as an all-weather flat card at Wolverhampton.  The obvious highlight is day two of Newbury's Hennessy meeting - the stable has four runners, Amigo, Western Warhorse, Tanerko Emery and Vazaro Delafayette.  I am particularly looking forward to seeing Tanerko Emery (pictured above) taking on Wonderful Charm - it looks to be a very good five runner novices' chase.  Our charge was a narrow runner-up behind Raya Star on his chase debut and was an unlucky fifth in the Greatwood Hurdle next time - he looks sure to give the favourite plenty to think about.

We had an excellent day at the Sir Peter O'Sullevan Awards yesterday in the Dorchester Hotel in London.  MCP was honoured with the prestigious lifetime achievement award, joining previous illustrious winners such as Lester Piggott, Vincent O'Brien and Sir Henry Cecil.  Among the guests were Terry Wogan and Desmond Lynam as well as flat jockeys Frankie Dettori and Tom Queally.

The day is the highlight of the year for the Sir Peter O'Sullevan Charitable Trust as it raises money for six of Sir Peter's charities through the auction of many unique lots.  The oil painting of Martin raised £11,000 and was bought by leading owner J P McManus who promptly gave it to Martin as a most generous gift.  The bad news was that muggins here had to carry it home on the train!

The after-dinner speaker at the ceremony was Michael Morpurgo and he was fantastic.  He spoke about all of the horses that went to war - Mrs Barnes tells me that he is a great writer.  When you think that the last book I read was The Beeno, it is going to be some challenge trying to tackle one of Michael's books!

More bad news - the cost of a pint of lager at the Dorchester...£14!  At least it should help keep the guests sober!  After the awards we caught a train back to Tiverton - it was a train an hour later than we originally booked, but it was only half full.  Nevertheless, we were charged an additional £80 per head for the amendment to our booking - no wonder the rail firms seem to be doing okay despite dwindling numbers on a lot of their trains!

It was great to catch up with a number of old faces such as Adrian and Anna Nolan who had top class chaser (and Hennessy winner) Chatam at Pond House.  Clive Smith and even Bob Wheatley phoned up to say well done - Bob was the owner of Martin's first Cheltenham Festival winner, Baron Blakeney and he featured in one of the montages during the lunch.

What an incredible man Sir Peter is...he is 95 years old and still sounds great on the microphone.  In all, it was a memorable day...