A Blue Diamond? And Burning Chocolate.....

Tomorrow sees the running of the Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield Racecourse.  I've always liked the day....  As a general rule you can expect to see some of the best WFA horses running, both middle distances and sprinter-milers, not to mention great sprinters and of course those precocious 2 year olds.  The company has always been nice too.

I was suffering from a sore tummy this morning.  My mood was not helped by the fact that my microwave still smelt of burnt chocolate....  I see you shaking your head in dismay, saying to yourself 'you burned what??????'...  I discovered the hard way that normal eating chocolate doesn't melt well.  I blame the 8 year old daughter.  She picked it out, to put melt to put on the strawberries for dessert...  Not me....  It started to burn on the gentle heat of the gas cooktop, so I switched it to the microwave on the melt setting..  Only to see it come out actually smoking with real smoke pouring out of the offending microwave.  I'm sure the house still smells a little bit of it...  Cooking chocolate, do I hear you shout?  Crossly, or affectionately??  Possibly the former..  Who knew....  What can I say?  It's a special gift......

My mood picked up when I arrived to see Archie after school drop off.  I'm sure a small part of my miseries was not seeing him the day before.  As I've said many times before horses help me through things more than a little bit.  I'm sure you're dying to catch up on how he's going.  I worked him in the rain this morning.  The rain stopped long enough while I was saddling, with the sun coming out to help sneakily lull me foolishly into taking my raincoat off.  Of course 3.5 minutes after I got on him the rain swept back across and fell in earnest, leaving me and the horse soaking wet.  Archie wanted to be slightly hysterical about getting wet, particularly when I his face started going into the rain.  However my lovely bright bay and I cannot afford to be pansies about the weather......  He eventually settled down and worked properly, but he didn't like it!!!!

A Tale of Two Diamonds....  Sepoy..  Clinical in 2011.
A Tale of Two Diamonds?  "Barbie" - Miracles of Life dispels the gloom in 2013.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Joyous Family

Image
Another famous and successful thoroughbred family that I have a reasonably complete library of is the family of the champion racemare, More Joyous.  She is a bay mare, foaled in 2005, which makes her a year older than Black Caviar. More Joyous is by the great American black stallion (and one of "my Boys") More Than Ready.  She's out of the Sunday Silence mare Sunday Joy, who was out of the grand broodmare Joie Denise (who died not all that long ago). Sunday Joy won the AJC Oaks in and is a half sister to Tuesday Joy. All 4 mares were/are owned by John Singleton and reside at his gorgeous Strawberry Hills Farm at Mt White, NSW. More Joyous and Nash Rawiller.  Futurity Stakes, on Blue Diamond Day.  26 February 2011.  One of my favourite images of the great mare. More Joyous, like her contemporary Black Caviar, is now closer to the end of her career than the beginning. But it is one I've chronicled in a similar fashion to the way I have documented the
Read more

The Legacy of Eight Carat: From the Vault Volume I

Image
We have been back in lockdown here in Victoria. Lockdown 5.0 to be precise and as a result it made us go back to feeling like sad sacks.  After having seen off Lockdown 4.0 a teeny tiny bit triumphantly, where we saw off both Delta and Kappa variants (evil beasts that they are - curse you stinky COVID - curse you), we had literally only just gotten back to work before being very suddenly plunged back into Lockdown 5.0 after the visit of those very nice removalists.   'Thanks very much!!!!' we all shouted indignantly!!!!  A key difference with Lockdown 5.0 was that half the country also into lockdown at the same time which made us feel slightly less sad.  The Victorian Government doesn't muck about anymore when it comes to outbreaks.  Their reaction is swift and severe and not at all namby pamby.  I just wish the same logic would be applied to Sydney which continues to deteriorate, much to my dismay.  This week we took our first tentative steps out of Lockdown 5.0, hurrah f
Read more

The physical drain of riding horses

Image
Most people agree that the life of a jockey is a difficult one.  There are a handful that rise to the top, and do extremely well out of the Sport of Kings.  The vast majority however struggle with their weights, and do their best to avoid and/or overcome injury.  Anyone who has ever been pelted off a horse would know that it doesn't tickle!  And of course the older you get, the more it hurts!  We used to fang around on our ponies, bareback, in headstalls and leadropes, never wearing a riding hat.  Completely fearless, and I am sure that on the odd occasion I parted company with my horse, I used to bounce.  In fact I rarely used to fall off, unless the horse came down as well, I guess all those years of galloping around bareback meant my balance and ability to swing my body with the horse was pretty good.  I'd like to say that I could still ride the same, but age and the maturing mind catches up, and you start thinking of the consequences of 'what if I come off', which
Read more