Sometimes you feel that the fates spend most of their time concocting cunning plans with the sole aim of preventing your horses winning important races.
Such was the case at Ellerslie yesterday when the rains came and destroyed the chances of Dee and Gee and Rikki Tikki Tavi winning their respective events. Both mares need good ground to show their best form and I had no hope that they would finish as close as they did.
The upside of all this is that RTT will be easier to place in the future, especially as she won’t gain more than a couple of rating points for her efforts. As for Dee and Gee, she’s the sort of mare who, with an ounce of luck, will one day win one of our major staying events. (Fingers crossed everyone, please).
To cheer myself up, I thought I’d do a little addition. To date our racing partnership has contained pretty much the same membership, with just the occasional variation. To date we have owned 12 thoroughbreds of racing age; eight have been retired and four are still in action. Seven of the twelve have been winners, accumulating 36 victories between them.
There are a couple of statistics which do provide a warm glow when the fates do their worst. Firstly, of the seven winners, six have gained black type. Secondly, the twelve horses have accumulated $996,533.38 in stakemoney. Just $3466.62 to go.
Getting back to RTT for a moment, I’m really looking forward to breeding from her. Although Tavistock has gone off the boil in a reasonably spectacular way, she’s got an awful lot of her damsire Volksraad in her, so I’m not too worried. Furthermore, several aspects of her pedigree cross really well with Danehill, so she won’t be difficult to mate.
The lessees of Dee and Gee have a right of purchase on her; I can’t imagine them not exercising it. For the sad, sad story of the circumstances leading to the lease have a look elsewhere on this site. The search facility usually works quite well.
