All horses worked really well this morning with Jake (Doctor Kingsley) Harry (Out of Range) Ben (Whither goest Thou) Dolly (Velvet Royale) Eeyore (Wild Dove) and Flash (Back in a Flash) having a very good schooling session and the rest went up the hill gallop. Jake, Dolly, Harry and Ben are all entered for Ampton. We have got Dolly and Ben entered in the maiden, Harry in the restricted, as we don't want three in the same race, and Jake in the Men's Open. We have had to take Jake there as Whitfield is off which is a shame as he loves Whitfield and it would have been nice to start him off on a track that he already knows. He either loves a track or hates it and there is no in between with him, so we will find out on Sunday which camp Ampton falls in.
HS2 has been making the news lately and it seems almost certain that it will be going ahead. It fills me with gloom to think off the total destruction of our countryside just to speed up the journey time from London to Birmingham by fifteen minutes - This alone will cost 44 billion pounds and they haven't even estimated the further cost of the line when it is extended further North.You would have thought that there would be far more important things to spend that sort of money on, like flood defences- which is actually a necessity, or improving the existing infrastructure. It will be going straight through our home and yard and we have been told that it could be as early as June 2015 when they want to clear the site. It just doesn't bear thinking about.