Farewell Matuhi

             Gevrey Chambertin

Meanwhile in the other action of the day there can be no excuses for Dynaste.  He ran a good race and finished second the Benefficient and believe it or not I did tell all the people in our marquee that he was the one to beat!  I did not listen to myself however as I backed Dynaste!  Ballynagour did not appear to stay up the hill.  I am pleased to report that all our horses from yesterday seem to be fine this morning.  Our thoughts and best wishes go the JT McNamara and his friends and family.  JT is one of the top Irish amateur jockeys of all time and has ridden four Festival winners but suffered a serious injury when falling at the first fence in the Kim Muir yesterday.  He was was taken to Frenchay hospital by helicopter and a thoughts and prayers are with him as we wait for further news of some tests.

Today there are four meetings on around the country.  Two over the sticks at Cheltenham and Fakenham plus two flat cards at Lingfield and Wolverhampton.  David has six runners at the Festival.  Tanerko Emery, Ronaldo Des Mottes and Dan Breen all run in the ultra competitive county hurdle and all would appear to have each way chances.  I Shot the Sheriff runs in the Albert Bartlett, Gevrey Chambertin has bee made favourite for the Martin Pipe conditional jockeys race and His Excellency runs in the concluding race of the meeting, the Grand Annual.  Tanerko Emery never runs a bad race and I really like His Excellency.  He is a bit of a monkey, but a high class one!  His tail goes round at the end of his races but that does not seem to stop him!  It is another extremely tough day but we have some great races to watch.

Snooker player John Virgo popped into our marquee yesterday.  He has so many grey highlights these days that I hardly recognised him!  We had some great times travelling together round the holiday camps in the 1970's.  he can tell a story, maybe I will share some of these on another day!

I was chatting to Alice Plunkett at Cheltenham yesterday.  Alice looks at our website everyday and she said she likes it!  I told her that I have some photos of her in her under wear in Pond House kitchen!  (She was modelling for a riding catalogue!)  I said I would put them on the website, Alice went white before saying she had a good figure in those days!  I must agree, although she still looks very good these days to!  I better leave it at that, I am getting myself in trouble!