FAIR to say I wasn’t full of New Year cheer at Fakenham this week.
I love the track but it was a bad call to try and get Tuesday on.
At half six in the morning they’d notified everyone on the BHA site that two fences were being omitted because of false ground, and there was an extra 10mm of rain forecast.
When I turned up — after four and a half hours in the car — there were seagulls sitting on the flooded fields next door and you knew immediately it was in trouble.
Fakenham isn’t close for anyone, it costs owners, trainers and jockeys a lot of money to get there and the horses were in the paddock for the first race when they called it off.
I understand why they wanted to get the meeting on but, it’s already happened this year in November when a meeting was called off after the opener.
It’s been an otherwise pretty quiet week, as it’s the time of year the horses in Ditcheat get their flu jabs.
That was until Thursday night, anyway, when the South West was hit by some absolutely biblical rainfall.
The River Alsham burst its banks and the yard at Highbridge, which is next to Paul’s house and about a mile up the road from the main stable at Ditcheat, flooded.
Luckily most of the team live in and around the area and they were all on alert, as the river can overflow when you get that sort of rainfall, so they were on the scene very quickly at about 10.30pm.
A handful of boxes started to fill up with water so the horses were whipped out and placed in dry stables overnight.
It’s amazing how quickly the waters can recede around these parts, though, and there was no disruption to regular work on the gallops the following morning.
Paul decided to give the horses their vaccinations a little earlier this year so they should all be ready to roll in a couple of weeks.
With Sandown off, Harry Cobden has rerouted to ride ours, so I’ll have my feet up.
INDIVIDUALISTE (3.15) absolutely loves soft ground and looks our best chance. As always stay safe, and keep kicking.
A responsible gambler is someone who:
