WIND STOPS PLAY - AGAIN! 
Can't believe how windy it is around these parts nowadays, and bitterly cold with it. As such, when we arrived at Tokoro, it looked like the Mary Celeste, with only a handful of cars parked up to hint at any signs of life. The cookie run was short and sweet, the time being better spent going to the home centre to get some more wood for Jaguar to 'crib' on - pieces of 2x4 used in house building that tend to last a bit longer than regular wood.

The JRA organization keeps bringing out beautiful TV adverts (or CMs as they're called here) one after another to promote horse racing - sometimes specific races, sometimes Keiba in general. The one on the box the most at the moment shows a young horse who becomes stronger after care and training, going on to win and then provide the next generation of Thoroughbreds. The cycle has been the same for hundreds of years, but in this concise form, it sums up the romance of the sport nicely.