CHELTENHAM!!!

I wait all year with bated breath for the Cheltenham Festival - so am totally immersed in it at the moment - its been a great year so far, and am eagerly awaiting the Gold Cup tomorrow.

Jump racing is so visceral - you can feel every emotion, the whole gamut, from anticipation to delight, to despair to devestation, in the space of 10 minutes - and you are allowed to feel them, no pretending, no covering up, no being brave, no slippery slope.

It's bad for my TN, the reading the paper as a PDF, the excitement, the talking, the watching the TV with squinted eyes because you've taken so many drugs to try and damp the pain down so you can concentrate 100%. My concentration is shot at the moment and any extraneous noise totally distracts me and ruins the whole thing - so my poor gran has been persuaded to stay awake and then to go to bed after lunch rather than lie on her chair and snore!!! Poor lady, but god she is loud!

I was so excited and scared when Master Minded ran in the Queen Mother - you want the legend to come good - and he did, even though he was obviously not at his extreme best. Ruby rode him beautifully and it was a great race. Its a shame Voy Por didn't take his chance as well as I felt 2 1/2 in the Ryanair today was a bit far for him - but I don't think he'd have beaten the Master! I loved Simon Holts comment last year during commentary "He's making Voy Por Ustedes look ordinary, and he's NOT ordinary!"

Didn't have a lot of luck with the betting today, but more than covered my bets yesterday - I don't bet big, and never more than I can afford to loose, and only at the Festival and Aintree - but it adds a bit of fun to it all, though sentiment will trump any bets I have made in a finish!!

I have a mouth ulcer - right on an occasional trigger point - so very annoying! Its stupid how something so inconsequential can have such an impact!

Cirrus is still coughing and I'm struggling to get him to eat all his antibiotics in the evening - breakfast he yumm's up....sigh. He seems to have gone off the speedibeet as well which is typical of him. Hey ho.

Hugs

Niki xxxx