PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
If you've been following the blog for any length of time, you'll know how much Sophie wants to be a jockey. Well, she's fearless, light yet remarkably strong, and she can ride pretty good, too, so she's most of the way there. But when it comes to the details, practice makes perfect, and here we see Sophie doing 'The Kota' on a training piece. Definitely nine out of ten marks, my girl!

Sophie's not the only one at it. The other day Louis rode past the house at terrific speed on his bicycle, and as soon as he saw me standing by the gate, instinctively adopted his own interpretation of the classic 'The Kota' posture, as if he'd just breezed past the winning post of the Tokyo Derby, albeit with a rather different type of saddle beneath him! Sometimes, even when life isn't being too kind, you just have to smile...

If you want to see the real thing, try this TCK link: tokyocitykeiba.20120606. If you can't read Japanese, the green arrow to the left of the photo is the play button. It will load the video into Flash Player format for you.