Run For The Hills ran too free yesterday at Lingfield having seen too much daylight from his high draw.  His owner who now lives in Australia for part of the year, is keen to have him transferred to Singapore where, surprise surprise there is better prize money.

Starshine will be retiring to stud after a rather 'lack luster' effort at Wolverhampton last night.

Run For The Hills runs at 3.40pm at Lingfield this afternoon, a 6 furlong listed race. He had an operation on his wind in September which I hope has been successful but the only true test will be when he comes under pressure in a race. On his recent form he needs to show some improvement, he is currently rated 97 BHA and his draw is not the most helpful.

Keys due to run in a Bumper on Tuesday at Lingfield "posing" after his work

A disappointing effort from Avertor, never really traveling and although he ran on, he never looked like winning.  He would have been one of my Naps in April and some of the lads here are a pound or two poorer because of him !

Avertor runs in the 2.20pm at Lingfield this afternoon and here we are again...will he won't he win ?  I see Rodney Masters (Lambourn) has at least stay loyal, having tipped him in 5 of his last 6 races, and I hope for all our sakes his loyalty will be rewarded.  Surprise, surprise but I can report that he worked happily and well with Run For The Hills, a 4 year old colt rated 97 on Saturday morning on our polytrack.  One day he will win, but I feel he should carry a ' health warning'  punters beware having started favourite or second favourite in his last 5 races. Today is his first try at 7 furlongs but having missed the break at Wolverhampton he finished well over 6 suggesting that it might suit him, he will be ridden patiently today.

Another wasted trip to Capennelle racecourse on Sunday in search of soft or heavy ground.  As to quite how the ground could be described all week as heavy, as well as in Sundays Racing Post, and then the same again in the results in Mondays paper, remains a complete mystery.    I for one have learnt an expensive lesson and will not be encouraging my owners in the future to have runners there again.  On Friday afternoon, when the box arrived, my travelling head lad reported that it was good to soft and after a dry Sunday morning (24c) Steve Drowne walked it and rang me to say that it was nearly good ground.

 I total accept that it hadn't rained since Thursday and the ground was good to soft, we took a chance and got it wrong, but it's a complete joke to call it heavy and very misleading to the punters. Definightly can only operate when he gets plenty of cut in the ground and it probably makes at least 10 lengths difference in a 6 furlong race (eg Ayr's Silver Cup).  Steve told me that cantering to the start that he knew the ground was not going to suit him.  Luckily his very sporting owners were well looked after by the racecourse and enjoyed a delicious lunch and haven't yet chastised the trainer for his expensive errors.