A BUSY TIME

Hard to believe that a 6 day trip to the south (Montpellier conference for Hilary, via old friends in Lyon both ways) would involve missing 4 runs by my horses, Porto as already posted, Orlando at Enghien on Saturday 26, Polina at Le Neuborg on Sunday 27th and Porto at Cordemais (near Nantes) on Wednesday 31. Anyway I omitted to say that on the night of Porto's Vincennes race Querido came with an eye-catching finish in a Group 2 race. However, as in the previous week Marion caught the eyes of the commissaires and received a 4 day holiday this time. So while he was able to drive Orlando, David was in charge of the others. ORLANDO ran much better, unplaced but only about 25m from winner this time compared with 75 previously. He needs a solid pace throughout and this race was run very slowly, followed by a sprint home, which left those back on the inside like him without much chance. He still needs a couple of more hard races I would guess. Next day the track at Neuborg was quite dangerous after storms and after some fallers in the previous race Marion told David to be careful.. so POLINA was a careful 6th, but a very satisfactory run. At Cordemais David got PORTO away brilliantly from the 25m behind line... but it turned out to be a false start. Of course the next time he was poorly away and ended up 3 wide most of the way in the 18 horse field. David rightly didnt persevere round the final turn...