Generally, we don't like finishing second.
From our last twelve runners, two have won, SIX finish 2ND and two third. Circumstances demanded that both Henry Daly and I each had to have a runner owned by Alex Timpson in the same race at Huntingdon last week and what happened... Our horse KEY CUTTER, finishes second to his! Now that was mildly irritating. This could have been a winner for us and another for Alex, so quickly after her LLAMA FARMER revealed himself as a future star at Haydock last saturday.
However this weekend at Cheltenham, we were delighted with the seconds acheived by both EDGBRIAR and TIME FOR RUPERT. Both these horses were taking big steps up in class and acquitted themselves with great credit. EDGBRIAR was foot-perfect with Sam Jones on his first tour of the Cheltenham fences and completed a useful reconnaisance for his Festival target, The Jewson Novice Handicap Chase. 'Dreamy TOBY' is really getting is act together, but still went around Cheltenham with his ears pricked and admiring the view; there is plenty more improvement to come from him we feel.
'RUPERT' ran a faultless race to split an Arkle winner and a Champion Hurdle winner in his trial for the World Hurdle at the Festival. He travelled the best he has ever done through this race, a sure sign that he is developing and improving still. He gave four pounds to the winner and third, which in that sticky ground was quite a task. His owner, Toby Drysdale and I have kept telling eachother that as Rupert is a chaser in the making, this would be a quiet, tricky season for him. We are enjoying it more than expected! I feel that given a trouble-free preparation (most unlikely!) this horse will improve further in the next six weeks to give him a very good each-way chance, however I have no illusions of being able to trouble an in-form Big Bucks; that might be dreaming a little too much!
Kempton under flood-lights provided a different scene and setting on wednesday night where KRISTALLO won and KENTMERE only lost second place on the line in a 2m handicap on the all-weather. Iain and Linda Watters were on hand to cheer on and greet their winner and it was a good thing they were, as there was a paying crowd of about three to witness the great event! Both these horse dislike the heavy ground, so it has been helpful and worthwhile to run them on the A.W. and we'll look for further opportunities shortly.
We hope to run a lovely horse, SCAMPI BOY at Taunton tomorrow, but will have to see if Jack Frost will release his grip temporarily to let racing go ahead. This horse has developed so well since his debut at Ascot, in exactly the same fashion as 'LLAMA FARMER' has done.
There is a feeling around here that the horses are feeling really well and despite the Arctic mornings they do look fantasticaly well, so we must run what we can, when we can. I fear that the winter has not finished with us yet and that we face many more inconveniences and cancellations, but it is so pleasing that the team's sterling efforts through this weather are being rewarded with a good spell of form. Long may it last!

LLARMA FARMER,

Winning at Haydock, 23rd Jan 2010.

(photo courtesy of John Grossick)

We get one or two really pleasant surprises through a season and about a dozen nasty, inexplicable and horrific ones!!

LLAMA's last race at Ludlow was a huge disappointment, he just didn't seem to get involved, while we'd always thought highly of him. On saturday he started the race still looking a little clueless, but never has a horse learnt so much in five minutes because he went to the line, three lenghts clear, like a real 'pro'. This may not have been the hottest contest but neither was it an 'egg and spoon race' and this horse created a very fair impression. He has tremendous scope and a wonderful attitude so let us hope that his future is golden. One of the best sights of the day was owner John Timpson calculating his winnings from his tote tickets!

SARANDO with Liam Treadwell,

Finishing 2nd, beaten only a neck.

Although this was his last run before qualifying for handicaps, nobody can

accuse us of a 'quiet run around'.

Photo should be titled........................

.......... "ALWAYS TRYING!"

Both SARANDO and FIRM ORDER

ran excellent races yesterday, finishing second and showing themselves to be really good prospects for the future

Today we run three fillies in the mares bumpers at Folkestone and Southwell. BLACK ANNIE will improve for her debut run at Ludlow and although she will be better over further and hurdles in time, i hope that the conditions today and the presence of Anthony McCoy will help her cause.

At Southwell, FLORENCE KATE has also 'come on' plenty from her first race at Warwick three weeks ago, but will need to have improved plenty to get into the first three. OSMOSIA is a tough filly whose work has been good and she also has a staying pedigree. She has each-way chances today.

Our plan to retutn to competitive action yesterday were thwarted by the cancellation of Lingfield and the dangerous nature of the roads around here after another three inches of snow. We rather wish the talk os a thaw was correct at Cropredy Lawn as we still have 9 inches of the damn stuff and it is not going anywhere very fast! The horsebox safely negotiated the drive this morning, but the trainer's car still cannot cope, so i drove it up the gallop onto the top road and will meet it again by using a truck in a moment or two! Necessity is the mother of invention, or something like that. The reason for venturing off the place is to saddle four runners in the 4.00pm at Lingfield. We have had a sweepstake in the yard to determine the most likely and popular finishing order, but everybody thinks differently, i'll plump for Tribe.

There has been plenty written about the various ways that racing yards and racecourses have tried to manage through the current cold spell and all of us have our own ideas, experiments and changes of routine that we hope will see us through. The aim is to preserve and maintain the fitness of the horses, because in these conditions, it is difficult to actually increase and improve a horse's fitness. All yards are doing their upmost, but all trainers are wary of doing serious work on gallops that have been or still are, 'frost-affected'.
We cantered satisfactorily on the snow last thursday, friday and saturday and then re-started cantering on our all-weather (!) gallop yesterday and today. It would seem we are unlikely to have grass jump racing this week, but maybe things will improve over the weekend and next week may provide some action. Of course we all go through the motions and continue to make speculative entries, in case a balmy south or south-west wind arrives (without bringing snow) and a rapid thaw surprises everybody.
The Racing Authorities and Racecourses have done great work in re-scheduling and re-planning various meetings and we have tried to take advantage of unusual opportunities. We have declared three horses for the 2 mile handicap at Lingfield tomorrow, KRISTALLO, TRIBE and SARANDO. These three have also been declared again for thursday, along with KENTMERE! All these horses are itching to run and this looks a good way of galloping them with the chance of prizemoney! I do not intend to give you the answer to the Trifecta, but will say that all are as fit as can be in the current circumstances and are trying for their lives!
There are six N.H. Flat Races at Southwell tomorrow and we run BLACK ANNIE and OSMOSIA in the mares race. BLACK ANNIE ran pretty well at Ludlow, where we probably did not make enough use of her and Paddy Brennan rides her again tomorrow. Expect her to finish much closer this time, but she'll probably struggle to beat Nicky Henderson's. (how many times have we had to write that, this season?!) OSMOSIA is a charming, honest filly with a good French pedigree. She should handle the ground, which although is 'all-weather', has been riding very soft and testing recently.
All these runners are taking a different route to usual, but in these testing and challenging times we have to steer an uncharted passage through unknown waters. Hope the captain can avoid the reef and discover the treasure!

CROPREDY LAWN, 8th JAN 2010

Pictures showing that it is nearly 'business as usual' at Cropredy Lawn!!

Two extremely important and vital people pictured here, Head Man Trevor Heath (with his favoured gloves) and Everything Man Martin Archer who is battling to keep everything unfrozen, safe and warm.





We had about 9 inches of snow during tuesday night, so wednesday was spent salting and making the yards safe for man and beasts to move around. For that day only, we were confined to trotting exercise in the indoor school and so completed four lots in there. Remarkably, despite the roads being virtually impassable about 85% of our remarkable team, somehow got into work. Danny Pebody accompanied by his trusty dog, Frank ran from Lighthorne which is just the ten miles away. Small wonder this fantastic lad has qualified for the World Cross Country Championships in Hungary later in the year. Al Stewart, Danny Hannig and Becky Cupit walked from Cropredy, while others bravely skidded their way here. First in was John Gregory, who having fed his cows at 3.30am comes in feed our horses at 4.30am; he did admit to being five minutes late!
We have so far left our all-weather gallop all cosy under its duvet of snow rather than disturb the surface and harrow the snow into it, as that only helps to it freeze solid. We have plenty of 'White Grass' to canter on and this will maintain the horses' fitness for quite a few days. We will keep them ticking over in this manner until there are signs of a thaw, when we can step up their work.
The Racing Authorities are doing a great job of re-scheduling meetings and also laying on some new ones. It looks a great idea to plan an 'All-Weather - All Bumper' card at Southwell next wednesday and we will certainly be hoping to send runners there. We have also entered some of our dual-purpose horses on the all-weather at Kempton and Lingfield next week. The main problem may be finding flat-jockeys to ride them, as most have migrated to either sunnier or even snowier climes right now!
Hope you'll enjoy these scenic photos of the horses exercising and i know that you will appreciate the hardships and hardwork that goes into keeping the yard going and the horses' every need attended to, in these challenging conditions.

Well it's ten days late but it sure is about to be "deep and crisp and even" around these 'ere parts. We should get ten inches......... maybe we'll attract a new influx of lady owners as that would be a novelty at Cropredy Lawn.
The Met Office reports that we're heading into the coldest winter since the last barbeque summer, but up until tonight our routine has not been affected and the horses are healthy and raging. One or two have been bogged down by the racecourse ground but none have suffered from any inconvenience from the weather.
The gallop has been great and has attracted many 'winter migrants' from afar. It is all part of trying to train horses through the winter and it is at times like this that our team shines through. Every task is that bit more arduous and time-consuming, but everybody's commitment makes me so proud and inspires us all to carry on through.
Every year grumblings can appear about training fees and wages, but i can assure you that neither look unreasonable when you see the daily routine that everybody in Racing copes with in weather like this. Schools close, trains and buses go onto emergency schedules, the country will gradually gride to a halt, but where there are animals to be cared for, people will put in that extra effort and cope to see that all are cared for and exercised as much as possible.
We are unlikely to see grass for a while, so our attentions will concentrate around keeping the drive passable so that everybody can get here and the horsebox can leave to visit All-Weather courses that are not buried in snow. We had a contingency plan to gallop six youngsters in need of experience at Wolverhampton tomorrow, but even the Black Country has turned White!

My advice for this little pause in N.H. racing is to subscribe to The Week and when you do ask them to send you the last issue of 2009. The Week, is surprisingly enough a synopsis of the previous week's newspapers, that so many of us probably do not do justice too.
A few highlights to whet you apetite:

----From The Tabloids.
"A Russian man survived a five-stotey fall - twice. Alexei Roskov, 22, downed three bottles of vodka and hurled himself out of his kitchen window. He then got up, without a scratch, climbed the stairs to his Moscow flat and repeated the feat. "I have no idea why I jumped the first time," he said. "But when I came back up and I heard my wife screaming at me I thought it was best if I left the room again, out of the window."

----The spirit of Britain.
" A GPs' surgury in Preston, Lancashire, was docked £375 because it hadn't received any complaints. Under the current NHS system, surguries are rewarded for hitting targets, one of which is to show how they deal with complaints. Since the Preston surgury didn't get any, it lost out. A spokesman for the local NHS trust said it had to follow guidelines.

----The Christmas Read titled, " New Year's Day. What's the bloody point?"
I will not spoil this for you, it is just wonderfully original obsevations from a penniless writer from South Wales, Roger Lewis. He only gets £25 as an after dinner speaker........book him now!

Keep warm and steady on the ice.