Recent rides and forward thinking
While Hong Kong didn’t quite go as I’d hoped, Dubai Honour ran an extremely valiant 3rd, and amongst my other rides a couple ran solid races too. He has subsequently had a safe trip home and is looking extremely pleased with himself which is fantastic to see after such a long journey!
After getting back from the Hong Kong and Ireland trips I was really looking forward to the guineas meeting to come that weekend, but sadly was cut short of that on Friday when cantering to the start receiving a pretty sharp kick from the horse I was following.
Whilst extremely unlucky, I was equally fortunate to have been caught on my arm just above my elbow, and although it made a bit of a mess with a good hole that needed stitching back up it was a near miracle that nothing ended up broken and I was able to only be on the sidelines for 4 days in the end. It’s been pretty sore and a bit of a mission to get the swelling down but it’s all starting to heal up nicely now thankfully and all being well won’t give me any on going problems.
It was worth the rush back into the saddle for the Chester meeting with Amleto winning impressively for Somerville Lodge on Wednesday, and Hamish winning back to back G3 Ormonde Stakes on Thursday, he’s been a yard favourite and it was a great thrill to get the job done on such a likeable and talented horse.
The weekend bought another trip abroad, this time to France to ride Karl Burke’s pair at Longchamp on French Guineas Day. White Lavender won decisively in the G3 Prix De Saint-George over 5 furlongs to make the trip worthwhile, and unfortunately Swing Along didn’t stay the Guineas trip and ran down the field, there’s no doubt she will bounce back coming back down in trip!
We’re now looking forward to a busy week with some exciting horses at York, Salisbury and Newbury over the coming days, and with the season now starting to warm up it’s a really fun time of year as a jockey trying to find horses for particular races like the Derby, and then looking as far ahead as Ascot.
