World Toilet Day update

Yes. November 19th – World Toilet Day! Who knew? It is also the anniversary of the end of the Finnish War, ended in 1809 by the splendidly named Convention Of Olkijohki. There was dancing in the streets when that concluded.

On the subject of merry dances, Plumpton on Monday, with TROPICAL SPEED in the now famous amateur riders’ race. Unfortunately just one of those things, but at least our horse stopped soon enough that we can look for a race next week. It seems that some of the riders were querying whether it was a false start and with the bulk of the field behind him, Tommie picked up on the words “false start” but the noise of whistles and hooves fuzzed out the detail that some riders were stating that it was legit – although notably, even those that carried on did so without conviction for the first lap. Lessons for the future? When a race contains several inexperienced riders, as this did, it is not going to cause a delay to give them a one minute reminder of the procedures before the race. And it is not the first race where bypassing obstacles has begotten chaos.

The other runner since the last update was MONANSUNU, who finished sixth in the bumper at Sandown. he probably need the race but still finished only eight lengths behind the runner-up, which was very encouraging indeed. He has schooled well over hurdles since, but will likely have one last bumper run to get a bit of naivety out of his system.

Also schooling well have been EPHYRA and SOMKIYR. They were destined for a flat run at the abandoned meeting at Nottingham recently, but will now probably go direct to hurdles – likely location Lingfield, if the ground is not too bad.