Yesterday morning we took three horses for a racecourse gallop at Towcester. We took Wild Dove (Eeyore ) We Never Give Up (Jess) and a new recruit called Exclusive Rights (Scruffy) it was great for all of them but particularly for Scruffy who was bought at the same time as Lady Barfad (Goody) from Doncaster and reared in the Scottish Borders, but when the owner sadly died she was sent to a professional yard which must have been too much of a cultural shock for her as she just didn't cope with the regime there at all. She ran at Towcester and all but bolted with her head in the air and then pulled up two from home. We went to see her being unsaddled afterwards and she was a nervous wreck, she ran a couple more times with the same result, so now she has come to us to see if a slower approach might be the answer. The racecourse gallop certainly seemed to have the desired effect as although she was very nervous to begin with she settled beautifully and did a very nice piece of work. She is really well bred, with her mother being full sister to Supreme Glory, so she is definitely worth persevering with.
Last evening we walked the Atherstone course as we are hoping to run four horses there tomorrow, the ground was perfect and I have never seen the track in such good order,  The horses that will be going are Val D'Auberge (Dug) in the members, Poppaway in the confined, Ponty Pandy in the restricted and Lady Barfad in the mares maiden.  We then had a very nice steak with Patrick and Juliet at The Pytchley, our old stamping ground.....
Today Doug and I are slipping off to Bitterley near Ludlow with View the Dance, we have never been there before and it is has glowing reports so we thought we would see for ourselves. It probably isn't quite the staying track we need for Dancer but she needs the run and if this dry weather continues the ground will go against her.