Friday, April 10, 2009

middleham open day

Middleham, for those abroad/who don't follow the racing, is a small village in North Yorkshire packed full of training yards, top quality ones (the biggest trains for Sheikh Hamdan/Darley). and Every Good Friday they have an open day in aid of charity, 0930 - 1230 for the central yards, and 12 - 4 for the one outlying one (George & Ann Duffield).

and this year for the first time there was stuff in the afternoon, and my friend natasha & her husband Philip had been asked to do a dressage to music (the afternoon events were largely about what a racehorse does after it's racing career is over, and they do a nice line in ex racehorses!) so i wanted to watch that.

so off we went - up early, much to partner's disgust (slept in car on way down, only an hour) and molly got turned out but i left the mucking out until later

and we had a really good day, despite the morning rain.

some lovely horses! as you'd expect! and the drssage to music was good, despite the slope, teh howling gale (low moor being misnamed and being quite high!) - particularly impressed, philip, with your walk/canter transition!

then in antique shop bought an old print of a farrier hot shoeing, rather nice - can join the pile of pictures looking for a wall to be hung on (we need to decide what goes where, now the house is fit to have pictures put up!)

got back home about 4, time i'd mucked out etc and got molly in - could see a BIG black cloud heading our way - the rain started whlst i was grooming ... so could see no point tacking up, and that was right, time I left the rain was coming down hard....

7 comments:

Di said...

Sounds like you had a lovely day. Miserable weather here too.

trudi said...

Sounds a lovely day and I'm quite envious. I did enjoy being around the racing scene when we lived in Epsom. Yes it ended miserably weather wise here but it held off longer than I thought it would.

Nicola said...

Sounds like a nice day out!

Jean said...

Good fun! I take it the dressage horses were ex-racers? My PJ raced before I got him, but neither Toby nor Tucker were ever on the track. Thoroughbreds are just cool horses, no matter what they do.

Waiting for the rain here...the day was perfect!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a fun day out - it's nice to see the TBs having good jobs after racing days are over.

Mary Lou said...

I wonder if Middleham is like Newmarket. What a great idea - to advertise what the ex-racers can do. I bet there is an endless supply of them.

Drizzly and cold in Cambridge too - good day to make soup!

Claire said...

middleham is a smaller version of newmarket, mary lou! but the scenery is much better!