In Need Of A Strong Drink

Courtesy Jenny Felix

Our Aussie lad Raining Dollars (pictured) ran at Home Hill today with Jeff Felix at the controls. Sadly, he got bumped, causing him to clip his leg quite badly - the cut will definitely need some TLC, as it looks quite deep. It's a damned shame, because we were expecting a decent result from him, but that's racing. We've not been having much luck in Australia of late, but, as in England, I know the effort was made, and if we don't win, there's a good reason for it. Wish the same could be said of the Japanese campaign!

War Chronicle ran at Niigata having had over three months on holiday, and looked awful on the back straight. Yoshida's riding didn't help, as he'd placed the horse in a terrible position on the run in, but 0.8 seconds off the pace is never going to challenge a podium spot, and seventh or eighth, 0.7 or 0.8 seconds adrift seems to be the norm nowadays. If it can't get another start within the next couple of weeks, now it remembers what it was bought to do (ie. race - something it's only managed to do a pitiful eight times so far, despite being born in 2012) and show definite signs of improvement on the day, I would personally throw in the towel, as, if nothing changes, it's just not up to the job under its current trainer. Staying in NAR would have been the only sensible answer, in reality. The two other Carrot horses that ran in the same race were 10th and 13th, by the way - another pair of nags that simply made up the numbers up to 15, which is a totally pointless exercise. It might keep generating income for so-called 'trainers' and Northern Farm, but it's just wasting time and money from the shareholder's point of view. It's not as if there's a shortage of horses in circulation - indeed, there's too many for the sparse calendar to deal with properly, so keeping donkeys makes no sense whatsoever.

Looks like we'll be continuing with Mirzam and Masterson for the Box 41 syndicate next year, with a new colt being introduced to fill out the numbers and give us a two-year old to play with. Another exciting flat season ahead then, and hopefully we can get some jumping action from The Jazz Singer over the winter to keep things ticking over.