Being the eternal optimist that I am I refused to be put off by Monday's unfortunate events and was more than happy to make the ( admittedly very short) journey to Bath racecourse to see Molly.

We arrived in good time which was just as well as it was Ladies night and this combined with the good weather meant there was a large crowd in attendance.

Molly was in the third race and we left the Owners bar early to get a good luck at her in the pre-parade ring before meeting jockey Liam Keniry for a brief discussion before the race. Stuart instructed him to drop her in behind , switch her off and then get her to work her way through the field. Keniry confirmed he would do this and then try to kick on from the entrance to the home straight (approximately 4 furlongs from the finish).

Keniry rode the race true to his word. Molly entered the home straight much nearer last than first but then started to pass horses, picking up nicely, but in the end had too much ground to make up and finished 5th. It was nice to see her ridden from off the pace as this obviously suits her.

After the race Keniry said he had gambled on getting a run through on the inside and at one point he thought she might snatch third place. He said she was not a lost cause and could possibly win a race at this level in the future. He also said that she had no problems with the going ( which despite all the recent rain was still on the firm side of good). Finally he said she may appreciate a step up in trip to 10 furlongs but if we couldn't find a race at that distance she would still be competitive over a mile.

After the race we thought it would be useful to attend the subsequent auction for the winner. There was lively bidding with several potential purchasers involved. The horse involved was eventually retained by the previous owners for 7,200 guineas. Afterwards Stuart explained that the reason for the interest in the winner was the fact that she was realatively unexposed and still had potential improvement in her.

However I did pick up a couple of important points whilst watching the auction which will be very useful if we ever do find ourselves in the position of having to bid to keep Molly:-

1) Bids are in guineas (i.e units of £1.05) and not pounds and therefore we should take this into account when working out our limits.

2) We should double check the prizemoney being awarded to the winner before working out our limit. 1st prize in Molly's race was only about £1,700.

Finally, I asked Stuart about Muffin. He said that he had been a bit quiet the day after his exertions at Chepstow and had decided to avoid entering him into another race straight away as it was difficult to tell exactly how much this had taken out of him but he would probably start looking for another opportunity for him next week.

So that's it after a second night this week of watching horseracing and drinking Guinness ( and it's only Wednesday). There's alot to be said for evening racing in the summer.

Good night!! (or should I say morning).

Anthony