It has been a quiet winter so far here at Albert House withnot many horses to run. Given we have a small team and want to have winners during the summer, it is essential that some of the horses have a decentholiday. We have six babies that are being educated and we hope to get two or three in from pre-training early next year, so we are crossing our fingers that the future is bright. Looking at the recent runners, Endured won nicely at Kempton recently and Global Warning showed more spark when second at Lingfield. Sir Oliver was 4th at Wolverhampton and showed signs ofencouragement, running a little fresh after a break.
Just before Christmas we look like having three runners at Southwell on the 22nd December, it’s funny how the program pans out sometimes and we are likely to give London Eye a run back on the level,Southwell should suit him well now the surface has been changed. Thaki will return from a break post a wind operation so it will be interesting to see if it has worked and Global Vision is having his first run after a nasty tumble at Wolverhampton, luckily horse and jockey emerged relatively unscathed and itcould have been a lot worse. Sir Oliver will run again just after Christmas, he had some time at grass after his win at Epsom so I would be surprised if he doesn’t step forward a little next time now he has a recent run under his belt.
There is a high profile bullying case going on and there has been plenty written enough about it already. If bullying has gone on then it should be dealt with and there are intelligent people hearing the case who willweigh up all the evidence and hopefully reach a conclusion that is fair based on what they have presented to them. What I don’t get is that now we are in the 21st century, why don’t the lady jockeys have their own valets present in their changing room? If a valet can’t make it pay because there are not enough ladies riding at a certain meeting, then they need to be subsidised to make it work and if some tracks don’t have a big enough space, then they need to make one.
In this modern world forme it shouldn’t be happening, if I had a sixteen year old daughter I wouldn’t wanther to have to walk into a male changing room which is effectively what the weighing room is and you would not expect the men vice versa to have to walk into a female changing room to get their equipment to go to work with.
At racecourses where there is sufficient room everything related to weighing out etc could be sorted in a different room if that is seen as more economical but it is not acceptable in this day and age for the ladies to have to go into the male changing room. It might be seen as the normality and how it is but it doesn't reflect what should be happening if you asked someone looking on what the setup should be and we are surely trying to get potential jockeys of all sexes into the sport, it's time racecourses are setup to reflect that.