Panda Power

 

Panda Power had her second race at Newmarket tonight and it was a lot better.

She actually knew what she was supposed to do.

The Updated Newmarket July Course

 

The July Course at Newmarket is one of Britain's most loved and quaintly charming race courses. It is one that you would be loath to change with its pre-parade ring, bars and restaurants all set in trees behind a 1930s grandstand.

But the powers that be have updated it for 2007.


Note the extended restaurant and the larger courtyard for spectators. The former improvement was sorely needed as the previous one was far too small.


Here one of the new bars, with two restaurants, is shown on the right.

So is it better?

At a first view, I would give it a resounding yes, as there seems to be so much more space. Some may lament the disappearance of a few trees, but others have been planted to replace them.

We also liked the fact that the Annual Members bar had been rearranged and the food was so much better with a proper salad bar. (The latter is important for me, as I'm a coeliac and can't eat sandwiches and I don't trust most mass catering offerings.)

So I suspect those that feel racing should be reserved for a couple of hundred aficionados will write letters of protest to the Racing Post and the Telegraph, but I for one will be giving a well done to all who have improved our much-loved course.

A Rainbow

 

I was walking the fields last night and took this picture to see if rainbows can be photographed.


They can!

And then There were Seven

 

She's lost one, but in this picture you'll see that she only has six.


The other one had got left behind and she was calling in a very agitated way for it.

Finally, she found it in the other pond and despite a lot of calling and rushing between the two ponds, she was unable to get the lost duckling to join the others.

So she took the six back to join it.

Later in the evening I found her, still with the seven ducklings, wandering around the yard and into and out of an empty stable. She then took them all into a pond that is full of moorhens.

I suspect that there may well be a few less ducklings in the morning.

Rising Further

 

The building is now at scaffolding level, with the internal block walls in place.


Note the door at this end, which will have to be moved. The step is just too high for a stable.

Finally Ducklings

 

Finally, some ducklings have arrived. Eight of them.


They are waddling all over the front lawn.

The Walls are Rising

 

Finally despite all the bad weather the walls have started to rise on the new offices.


You can't really see it, but the services such as drains, phones, water and electricity have now been piped into the building.


Most of the walls are block.

I did think about using Hemcrete, which is made out of hemp and very green as it extracts carbon from the atmosphere. But the bricklayers have said it is a real pain to build with.

Perhaps not yet?

Why We Don't Use Keepsafe

 

A lot of studs use special wire fencing, like Keepsafe, to enclose stock.

We don't.

I don't think it looks tidy, it can be expensive to replace and minor repairs are a nightmare.

I illustrated the latter this morning when I drove the Bobcat, that I'm using to bury the water main, into the new fencing.


With a hammer and some new nails, everything was repaired within half an hour.


Try doing that with wire fencing.

Hares

 

The hare is the most majestic and also the most unknown of the animals of the British countryside.


The picture shows two taken whilst we were walking the bassets this morning.

I always carry a simple digital camera and will endeavour to get some better pictures in the future. Often on the mower you can get within a few feet, by adopting the circling tactics that predators use to capture hares.

Connecting a Water Trough

 

One of the problems with troughs is that the water is usually connected to the valve, through an elbow joint. Inevitably, they leak.

So we have now connected the new ones using a standard garden tap, two Hozelock tap connectors and a length of professional-quality hose.


The connection seems to work well.

The great advantage though is that the trough can be easily removed and taken to the workshop for repair and cleaning. This should help, as the valves always go on the worst and coldest day in the winter.

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud

 

It's not only hippopotami who like to roll in mud.


We had a couple of violent storms and several centimetres of rain, so Vague Shot made the most of the opportunity.

Anybody fancy cleaning him up?

Concrete Surprise

 

This illustrates some of the problems of building on old site. The builders dug through one layer of concrete to find yet another layer.


No wonder buildings are always late.

The Stud Ducks

 

We've always had a few mallards that waddle around the stud. This year there seems a few more, but we have not seen any ducklings. On the other hand the moorhens have raised young successfully.

Mares and Foals

 

I took this picture of mares and foals in one of the new paddocks, to show how unspoilt the countryside is around here.


Note that if I'd taken it from a different direction you'd see the awful water tower on the skyline at Haverhill.

Smoothing the Trench

 

This picture shows one of the little John Deere garden tractors pulling a ribbed roll to finish off the burying of the water main.

Crushed Concrete

 

Where the water passes through the gateway into a field, we've filled the trench with crushed concrete, rather than the soil we took out. This means that there should be no holes for horses to put their feet in.


Note we used a Bobcat to move the materials about.

I find them great fun, easy-to-drive and pretty safe for the operator. Unless of course you do something stupid!

Inquisitive Horses

 

Horses are suppose to be nervous creatures.


The picture shows several mares and foals being highly nervous, whilst the machine digs a trench for the water.

Crossing the Ditch

 

We're at the ditch at the bottom of the land, where the water main crosses into the far field.


Note the scaffold pole used to pass the water pipe across the ditch.

All of the plastic pipe and fittings was ordered over the Internet from a company called Pipestock.

The Sparrows are Back

 

When we moved here there were quite a few house sparrows around the house and in the yard. But within five years they had gone, just like they have in many parts of the UK.

But on Friday, there were a pair of sparrows on the drive and another in the barn.

Perhaps, they're on their way back.

One Up, One Down and One in the Middle

 

We had a good day at Windsor races today.

In the first place, one of our clients, Louise Parry of Pantycoed Stud won the Kate Harpham Prime Fillies' Handicap Stakes with the horse, Encircled. She owns the horse in partnership with her brother, Peter.


Here the horse is being led in with Michael Hills on board.


Louise and Peter received the prize from Kate Harpham, who was having her hen party at the racecourse.

The horse is trained by Derek Hadyn Jones at Pontypridd in South Wales.

Encircled was bought as a foal by bloodstock agent, Larry Stratton, on behalf of Louise. Her dam, Ring of Esteem, was also bought at the same time.

The one down was Panda Power, who ran very green and just beat one. Hopefully, she will improve.

On the other hand, we also met Walter Swinburn, who trains the filly, Moonlight Angel, which Celia bred. She ran at Lingfield Park this evening and finished seventh in a very good race.

Panda Power Runs at Windsor

 

Panda Power will be running in the 4:40 at Windsor this afternoon.

Foreign Bricks

 

I've just noted that the bricks used on the new buildings were made on the Continent, in possibly Belguim.

If I'd known this, I'd have rejected them.

Why do we have to import something as mundane as a brick? Especially ones that show a lot of salt as they dry out.

Mark and his Crumb Hoe

 

This shows Mark Reed with his special crumb hoe for taking those annoying little bits out of the drainage channel, before the pipe and stone go in.


Rumour has it that the hoe was salvaged from Noah's Ark. After all Noah would have needed a lot of drainage.

Bricks and Salt

 

The bricks on the left are the new brickwork on the stud offices and those on the right are those on the house fifteen years ago.

 
Why has one set got salt on the outside so quickly and the other never has had any?

Could it be that the ones on the house used a recessed joint using a tool called an Excalibur Pointmaster? I used to own the company until I fell foul of a typical insolvency stitch-up which left me with the debts of the company and none of the assets.

But I do have a few Pointmasters that I sell occasionally on eBay.

Preparing to Concrete

 

All laid out and ready for the concrete.

Digging in the Water

 

Mark Reed is using a very old machine to dig the trench for the water pipes.




It works extremely well and gives a nice clean trench for the water pipe.

We are also putting in an extra land drain at the same time, so that hopefully we won't need to put in an expensive road to get to the bottom paddocks.

Are the Sparrows Back?

 

When we moved to Newmarket about fifteen years ago, the stud had quite a few sparrows.

But over the years they have disappeared.

However, this morning when I returned from getting the papers, there was a pair on the drive.

So perhaps they're coming back.

A Temporary Connection to a Water Trough

 

The new paddocks need water, but digging in the mains can take a long time. Especially, if like me you want to dig in a land drain to take away the surface water from the road that runs alongside the paddocks.

So I've setup a temporary connection using standard Hozelock components.


One of their standard tap connectors fits the ball cock in the water trough, asthey are both the same thread. The hose is connected using a standard connector.


This shows the connection with the hose removed.

Panda Power

 

This is a picture of our three year old, Panda Power, working on the gallops at Newmarket.


She is in training with Stuart Williams at Diomed Stables. Stuart won the Vodafone Dash on Derby Day yesterday.