We didn't run the two horses today as we thought we would give them another couple of weeks work to ensure that they are 100% fit and the ground would have been too fast for Harry anyway, so it seemed a long way to go with just Doris. The plan is to run Doris in a mares only bumper on April 18th at Towcester which is only 20 mins away and wait for some serious rain for Harry. It was too firm to school him and he needs plenty of practice before he races again - bless him... The long term weather forecast isn't predicting any rain for some considerable time so we have also decided to rough off Paddy and Leon - Leon has never had a holiday since he was put in training at two years of age, and Paddy had a tough season in Ireland and it didn't seem fair to continue to charge full training fees when it was becoming increasingly obvious that he wasn't going to find genuine good soft ground for a long time, if at all. There is no hurry with either of them and they will come back next season fresh and relaxed having had a good break. That leaves Doris, Harry, Jake, Dove (yes, Dove?!) and Dream - Even after having had three months off Dove was still looking incredibly fit in the field and Will thought it would be a good idea to try her again before she retires forever - I have my doubts as I know what an old trout she can be, but up to now she has been behaving remarkably well and its great to have her back in the yard as there is never a dull moment when she is about. She is due to go to the stallion next week, she will just have a 'walk in' service rather than stay there for three weeks, and we will keep her in work and see if being pregnant makes her more mellow and amenable. Highly unlikely, but it might be worth a try as she actually loves being in work even though she doesn't always like starting in her races! We had a nasty incident when coming back from the gallops with Dream and Jake, I was riding Dream and Fran was on Jake and they had both done a really good piece of work on the uphill gallop - they were walking back upsides each other, ears pricked, seemingly perfectly happily when in a flash Jake whipped around and double barrelled Dream, kicking her really hard on the hind leg - there was this sickening crack and Dream groaned and stood there with one leg hanging, both Fran and I assumed the worst and that she had broken her leg. I was really upset as I had told Fran only that morning about how Dream's Mum (Supreme Dream) had to be put down as she was kicked in the field and had suffered a broken leg - it seemed too cruel to be true that her daughter should suffer the same fate. Thank goodness that wasn't the case, as after a few ghastly moments she put weight on the injured leg and although there was quite a bit of blood and she was very sore, it clearly wasn't broken. I am still a little worried about that cracking sound as I can't believe that the bone hasn't fractured and will ask the vet to have a look at her in the morning and see what he thinks. I wonder what she said to Jake for such an out of character reaction?! We got back to the yard (I wasn't in the best of moods) and we were met by two tattooed men in a scruffy pick-up truck who asked me if we had any scrap metal - if we hadn't arrived back when we did I very much expect they would have helped themselves to a little more than scrap - we have been plagued by gypsies in the last few months, ever since Doug had both his quads stolen last July they have been driving around our yard at any time of day clearly hoping that they would be able to pick up some more goodies. All our neighbours have had things stolen and it is getting beyond a joke. Needless to say I wasn't terribly polite to them, to the point where they phoned the police and said that they had been 'threatened' - sadly they then refused to wait for the police to turn up, but by which time I had got their number plates and a very good description of them. The police have been very good in our area and are keen to catch them but the gypsies are too clever for them and always make sure that they move the stolen goods on quickly enough so that there is no evidence against them. It is a very sad sign of our times that nowhere seems to be safe nowadays.