Pauline Harkin Racing

Well - I'm back!!! Huge apologies for leaving it for so long but as I am sure most of you already know we had a huge battle with HS2 and I have to be very careful with what I can say due to 'Non disclosure' reasons. Thankfully we won our case and the adjudicator judged in our favour. A HUGE thank you to those who helped us do this including Andrea Leadsom our MP and our fantastic solicitor, Sarah Beer. Also our great friends who supported us along the way. We could not have done it without you. THANK YOU.

We have been lucky enough to find a beautiful small farm on Exmoor High Bullen Farm which has sea views and the moors right on our doorstep. To say that we are happy would be an understatement. We thought we would really miss our friends in Northamptonshire/Oxfordshire but we have been inundated with visitors from 'up country' which has been wonderful and meant that although we don't see them quite as often we have spent quality time with them when they visit. The grandchildren also LOVE it here so we are seeing more of them than we did before!

The community has also made as really welcome and we are are thoroughly enjoying the social side of this area.

We still have far too many horses around and although we are not pointing this year we have some nice youngsters for next season. Popaway's daughter (Miss Popalong) is in training with Philip Hobbs. She came bog last out of 16 in her first race (a bumper) which was very disappointing but she ran too keen and ran out of puff - Her next race was a huge improvement. She was jumping hurdles and the penny suddenly dropped. She finished like a train and jumped like a bunny. She will go over 3 miles once she has a handicap mark. We have got a great syndicate for her and I think we are going to have a lot of fun....

Although we are not pointing this season we are doing a lot more hunting and absolutely loving it. We have four horses in work - Two 'ole timers Doctor Kingsley (Jake) and We Never Give Up (Jess) We also have 'Saved by Sam' and his younger sister Stacey - She is too nice to be a racehorse so is going hunting instead.

My Dad and brother Peter have just arrived as they are staying for a few days, so I will sign off with a few photos for now. It's good to be back!