Thank heavens Met day is over for another year. While the weather played ball and the day was full of glorious racing, even our winner in the third race did little to cheer me up. Four seconds, three of them in feature races, did nothing to brighten things and I was left feeling very sorry for myself, writes Joey Ramsden.
But there is always next year and we shall just have to come back stronger than ever.
Act Of War, sadly, did not run up to form. I am not sure if you can blame it on his not staying as when he went to challenge the winner, which is clearly a top-class horse, he did not have much to come.
Even if he does not stay, I would have expected much more of a kick. Full marks to Mike and his team; Ertijaal plainly looks a top horse in the making. Liquid Mercury ran a smasher and I was extremely proud of him. He never stops trying. Catkin did not run a bad race but I think gelding is the next obvious option and will be the making of this horse.
Cold As Ice ran a smasher in the Majorca and just got pipped in a heads up – heads down battle to the line with Inara, the Paddock Stakes winner. This is also clearly an extremely nice filly. Some days the nod goes your way and some days it does not. Well done to the connections.
I must also congratulate the connections of this year’s Met winner, Futura. A great training feat and he was well ridden by Bernard Fayd’herbe. They must still be celebrating.
Anyway, three seconds in the features is not good enough and we will have to up our game for next year.
Finchy Smiling – My mate Brian Finch is ok
At least my mate, Brian Finch has something to celebrate with Liverpool hammering West Ham 2-0. That just added to my happy memories of the day.
After all the hype of the Met, it is back to the grind of normal racing and the same old faces at the races. There are still many quality horses down here which have not seen the race track and I am sure there are surprise packages still to come from some of the other stables. We won’t be letting our guard down quite yet.
This is the time of year when we send our bigger horses out for a holiday. Many of them have been on the go for quite some time and just need to freshen up, both mentally and physically.
The trick is now to pull a rabbit out of the hat with the horses left in the stable. I am looking forward to this as I am sure we have one or two that will bring a smile to my face and make the Met day memories a thing of the past.
Dubai World Cup racing starts now in earnest and it is always great to watch the competitive racing.
No one has found my old Nokia (and if they have, they are not admitting it) so I am busy having to copy all my numbers down from an even older Nokia. This is proving to be an extremely lengthy, and no doubt costly process, as there is no way I am putting them all onto my new phone myself.
It has already taken me way too long to get to the letter J. I am not sure how much longer this miserable process can take but I honestly don’t think I can cope with it much longer.
www.joeyramsden.com
