Evening all – apologies in advance for this being one of the least informative race reports you will ever read on the forum.

With 15 days holiday to take before the end of the year, a Guild runner taking to the track 1hr up the motorway from my office was too good an opportunity to miss.

I arrived at Warwick about an hour before the first race, not for the first time this season there was slight confusion at the owners entrance – not of course anything to do with Debs’s instructions, but more to do with the fact that their computer system was housed in a building that had recently been demolished !! A shuffle or two of paperwork later and all was sorted.

Having got my bearings of the racecourse (it is in the process of being refurbished and nearly all the facilities have been moved at least once !), I met up with Simon and Holly after the 1st and we both enjoyed the winner in the 2nd and an exacta in the 3rd. It was then that we met up with family Farr and soon after Stuart who was busy with 3 sets of owners to take care of.

Stuart’s two other runners were both in the 4.40, Takufu, unbeaten at Warwick and Hawridge King – both ran well with Hawridge only just losing out to the useful looking Aphorism.

Away from Stuart’s runners, it was a good day for Kirsty Milczarek who had a 150-1 double.

Molly’s race was the inaugural running of the Duke of Brissac challenge. Basically all the jockey’s were amateurs, half English and half French and they had been allotted to the horses by means of ballot.

Stuart reported that Molly was well and had travelled up ok but that our jockey did not speak a word of English. However we were equipped with a translation of our normal instructions for Molly into French and with the presence of an interpreter for the French amateurs Stuart hoped we would be ok.

As we progressed through the card towards Molly’s race the previously grey but dry day turned into a cold, drizzly horrible late afternoon – something we could have done without (all rain to Newmarket please) – It was soon time to make our way to the parade ring.

It transpired that the “interpreter” was actually one of the French amateurs and having drawn a French jockey was maybe not ideal.

Molly was turned out well as always, Stuart had already briefed the jockey via the interpreter as well as he could, so with little further conversation with the jockey possible, we simply wished him “bon chance”.

A quick few minutes were left to place our bets and it appeared the bookies were clueless as to the likely outcome – Molly was available between 5-1 and 11-1 and many bookmakers had adopted a win only policy for the finale.

The race started, and for the interpreter come amatuer jockey it was to be short lived, his mount Prince Des Neiges, walked out the stalls, turned right and stopped by the running rail !! – Just the 15 left then for Molly to battle !!

It was difficult to see the race with the rain coming down and the start right over the other side of the course, but Molly broke quite well and our jockey was able to get her reasonably covered, all be it slightly nearer the front than is usual.

She ran the first half of the race between 5th and 8th and we were hoping that the jockey understood what was required and was keeping her calm ready to make her move in the home straight.

The race was quite slow and little happened until the last few furlongs as they turned for home. Monsieur Cottin seemed to take Molly very wide at the turn and with other horses hugging the rail, she started to lose places.

Both members and trainer were quite disappointed on course, feeling that we had maybe been let down by either a lack of understanding or an ignoring of the instructions – The first six jockeys home all being English seems to give credence to the fact that the owners with French jockeys were rather handicapped.

I have to say though that having got home and rewatched the race, although she finished back in 11th, she was beaten by only about 5 lengths and apart from taking her too wide, our jockey maybe didn’t give her quite as bad a ride as we first thought.

I would like to relay some feedback from the jockey but with the language difficulties and the translator marooned on the other side of the course, I am afraid I have none.

All I can report is that Molly didn’t seem too tired, she certainly wasn’t blowing and in fact was trying to nibble on some grass !! – Frustrating when she finished just the 5 lengths from the front.

So a slightly disappointing end to the day, but as always good to meet up with fellow members.

Hopefully we can get some more feedback from Stuart once he has watched a recording of the race and seen how Molly comes out of the race over the next few days.

Stuart confirmed that Muffin will run at Newmarket if the going is Good or softer.

Hope to see some of you, as well as some very dark clouds, on Saturday.

Cheers Paul