Because of the rainy weather, Doug and his new 'assistant' James, have been working hard on the pig sties/ stables - What a difference!

Over the weekend we were approached by a racing syndicate who wanted to rent the yard and also train their flat horses from here. We gave it a lot of thought but in the end decided against it, the money would have been handy but it would be my name that they would be training under and I wasn't happy about the risk to my reputation if they did anything untoward. Also, it would be difficult for us to get enthused about flat horses, who are treated very much like a commodity rather than an individual animal. If they were National Hunt people we would have to think again.

I watched 'The Apprentice' last night - I find it quite a worrying thought that they are supposed to be the 'creme De la creme' of our future leaders of the business world - It seems to miss out some of the basics of business. For instance last night, all that mattered was how many orders each team got for their new fitness product - they were allowed to pitch it at a maximum of £28.99 retail and yet no limit was put on the cost of production. The winning team had over 10,000 orders for their very slick product and beat the other side comfortably. However, if the cost of production was actually taken into consideration and they actually had to charge a proper mark up I very much doubt they would have won. Not once did this get mentioned. Also last week the two different teams had to cater for London business men. The winning team was the one who made the most profit. Predictably they bought the cheapest food from downtown supermarkets and were really stingy with the portions. There were a lot of complaints but they made the biggest margin - Would they get repeat business? Absolutely not but they still won the task. Probably not the best lessons in business but good viewing nonetheless.