Barney's Blog

Holiday nightmare

Evening all, the multi-talented, absolutely perfect, Barney McGrew here again.

Sorry I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks but I decided to have a break from the pressure of writing. It's not easy, being creative week after week and I'm not getting any younger.

Anyway, let's start with that embarrassing bloody cock-up on our Facebook page last Thursday.

There was a morning update about the yard supposedly having five runners that day and wishing connections the best of luck. The trouble was that they weren't running until Friday so it was all a bit premature.

It turns out that the bloke who does all our social media - the Peter Barron human - was trying to keep the updates going while he was on holiday, and he was up a mountain in Switzerland when he sent that particular post. He got mixed up due to a combination of the high altitude and too many bottles of Alpine beer.

Anyway, he's back home now and has asked me to apologise for the confusion. I know all humans make mistakes but I'd have had the bugger gelded if it had been left to me.

HAVING got that out of the way, onto more positive matters... I was dead chuffed to see Alethiometer win her second race on Friday, this time at Doncaster. She's a sweet filly, owned by a human called Dave Stone, who runs a Darlington-based business called Stone Technical Services, which specialises in high-level maintenance and restoration of historic buildings.

I like Stoney - as I prefer to call him - because he's always very friendly and down to earth. He came from humble beginnings and has done very well for himself, ending up employing a lot of folk. His business has completed some interesting projects over the years and he's clearly interested in the preservation of heritage. And on that suibject, there's been talk lately that he's planing to build a nice stone statue of me to go at the entrance to Denton Hall. That would obviously be the highlight of his career. H'away, Stoney, get your finger out.

The other thing I like about Stoney is that he gives his horses interesting names. I've probably mentioned this before, but an Alethiometer is a magical compass-like object that features in the His Dark Materials books, by Philip Pulman. It's nice to see the filly heading in the right direction.

I ALSO want to congratulate my old mucker Proud Archi, who's been back on the scoreboard since my last blog. I just call him Archi but that doesn't mean I’m not proud of him after his win at Beverley under the Connor Beasley human on June 21.

I couldn’t believe Archi started at 15-2 given the fact that he’d already won over the course and distance four times. He told me before the race how much he loves it at Beverley. “I just feel at home there, Barney,” he said.

Bit of background on Archi for you. His sire was Archipenko, who was a canny horse, first trained in Ireland by Aidan O’Brien, and then Mike De Kock in South Africa.

He won six races in all, including a Group 2 at Ascot as a four-year-old. He also ran in the Epsom Derby the year Authorized won but he didn’t act on the track, and finished last.

Archi’s dam is called Baharah, who won five times, including a couple at Ascot, when trained by a human called Gerard Butler.

And, you know how I like to keep you all educated, so a bit of history about Beverley – or The Westwood as it’s known.

Beverley was opened as a racecourse all the back in 1690 and had a break during the war when it was used as an airfield, and its uphill finish was the runway. Interesting eh?

BY the way, Archi was ridden by the Connor Beasley human, who hit the 50-winner milestone for the season with that victory. In my humble opinion, he’s riding better than ever and is now up to 52. Keep it up, Connor. We all know you’re not as good as your young ‘un, Kaden, but you’re not doing bad. Here's to the ton!

FINALLY, back to embarrassments - did you hear about the race at Thirsk the other day? I can’t believe it didn’t make the papers!

An inflatable jockey was riding an inflatable horse – called Full of Hot Air – for an inflatable trainer and an inflatable owner.

Full of Hot Air was 10 lengths clear coming into the final furlong but the jockey stopped riding and got caught on the post.

There was a big row in the winner’s enclosure, so the angry jockey stuck a pin in the horse, the trainer and the owner.

When he got called before the Stewards, he stuck a pin in himself.

The Chief Steward told him: “You’re an absolute disgrace. Not only did you let the horse, the trainer and the owner down, you’ve let yourself down too.”

That's enough hot air from me for this week. Lots of love, 'til next time. x