It has been a very 'up and down' few days. Immie came in especially to work Popaway up the hill. I was on Glory Hunter and Suzanne on Exclusive Rights. Normally we can't get within a bulls roar of Popaway but for whatever reason she was off the bridle on the first time up and even more so on the second, whereas our two were flying. We have never known her to be so flat and decided then and there that she wasn't going to run at Stratford. We and the owners were devastated. The vet was coming in to scope her anyway and take bloods. The scope was much better than her scope after Cheltenham. This time it was 95% clear and all set to be 100% for Friday. We just couldn't understand it. We have never known her to have a 'flat' day before and were very down about it. That night I suddenly remembered that she had her flu and tetanus vaccine on the previous Thursday. Annoyingly we had them all vaccinated at the end of the season last year on the 3rd June but this year racing is a week later so we had no choice but to vaccinate them then. The following day her bloods came back as 100% with really good readings and no indication of any sickness or muscle enzyme problems, she was also galloping around the field squealing and looked far from sick. We had a chat with various vets and the consensus was that she had had a bad reaction to the flu vaccination and would have been running a high temperature, and to try her once more on the gallops to see how she was. This morning Kara took her up and thank goodness she was back to the old Popaway again and flew up the gallops twice, hard on the bridle and then bounced all the way home. What a huge relief. So, with the vets encouragement she will be going to Stratford after all. At least it isn't such a testing track as Cheltenham and Immie will know to pull her up if she feels she isn't right.
We now have all three going to Stratford and I am going to be a nervous wreck..............
We had a lovely distraction from horses today with a pre puppy show lunch at John Moorhouse's which was as always delicious and then Doug went back to work whilst I went to the Bicester puppy show. I love watching the judging of the hounds and I was rather pleased with myself as I got the dog champion right and the first three in the correct order for the bitch puppies.. They looked fabulous and credit to the Bicester hunt staff.