Deepest sympathy goes out to the Cumbrian people who suffered the worst massacre in their history yesterday. 12 people randomly killed by a demented taxi driver, who up until then had been completely normal. Understandably everyone is in shock about the cold bloodiness of the killings and the press has been giving the story massive coverage. One can only hope that this sort of hype which has now made the killer Derek (not John!) Bird (who then killed himself) a household name, doesn't plant the seed of copy cat killings in the mind of some depressed no hoper, who thinks that the only way to achieve notoriety is by going on the rampage with a gun. The fact that Derek Bird also killed his mother (just like the Hungerford massacre) makes you wonder whether this inspired him to behave in the same way.
Lucy came in this morning and the three horses went out together. They are working the best they have ever worked and I am in a dilemma as to where to run them. At this stage Dream is definitely going to the Grafton point to point - because she is still a maiden her race should be less competitive. Red is fairly likely to go there too - we need to find out whether she can stay three miles on faster ground and it looks as though the ground will suit. She is also entered for Sunday at Worcs in a beginners chase but this race is seriously competitive and we just need to get a handicap mark for her without over facing her. When you race a horse under rules they are assessed on their first three runs and given a handicap mark - so if she ran really well on Sunday but came second/third to one of the highly rated horses she would get a high mark which would work against her in the future, also the fences are huge and it would be taking an unnecessary risk when we know that some of the very good horses will be going really fast. The more sensible option would be to run her in a mares maiden hurdle, (which she has been entered for on Tuesday) get a nice mark for her and then run her over the big fences when she has a (hopefully) reasonable mark. It is a shame that this system is in place because it actually encourages the trainer not to run the horse completely on its merits. Dove will almost certainly run under rules on Sunday in a handicap chase. As she has won six point to points she is now in open races where you get very highly rated horses coming out of top yards and going 'down' to pointing therefore making it very difficult for her to win. She has a nice low mark as she hasn't run under rules for a long time and it makes more sense to run her in similar company. Nerve racking though, as if she refuses to start everyone will know as it is televised!