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Quite an experience…and an addictive one!
Our horse is fine & on his way home. He jumped first two fine , then he tackled the water,Taxis, Irish bank section & made ground at each to find himself in the lead. Ordinarily on a Parks course this is his preferred position but here he had a good look sideways and eventually ran out. Frustrating as I had held my breath to that point & once he had pinged Taxis & handled the bank I thought "right , now we are in business!".
Anyway no harm done to horse or jockey so a fascinating weekend had a frustrating but ultimately acceptable ending.
I had the pleasure of being walked & talked around every fence by Keith on Saturday & that fuelled a desire to have another crack at the race.
Course facilities a bit battered but history of the place wins one over. Course management looked after us spectacularly well in terms of VIP viewing box tickets and a good lunch- and James Fry at the International Racing Bureau did much to smoothe the way for us.
One minor quibble would be that security guards were unnecessarily stern and uncompromising with connections of horses – even those with the correct "access all areas" wrist bands. Quite why they felt it appropriate to try to prevent a trainer & owner accompanying the horse onto the track at 7.30am on Sunday morning for a trot out I don’t know!
In answer to the question re injuries, I am not sure of Gawain but I believe that Shirley broke a leg and was put down in the big race.
Well done Mr Vana (again!) but we’ll be back!
I was a bit concerned to see the way that loose horses were running back onto the track during the race. I just wondered how difficult it was for loose horses to find their way back.
Course has many "open sections" so horses will generally take shortest route back. Our horse ducked out of the 6th, unshipped Keith then galloped through the woods & is seen on the tape crossing the front of the race. From there he got himself onto the racecourse proper , turned around & cantered back to the stable entrance! He’s not daft.
In general I think that the loose horses looked for a way back to the stables so whether they posed a "nuisance" would largely depend upon which point they became loose.
As an aside, number of finishers was a record I think
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