Good Afternoon Everyone, What a Lovely Day it is Today!

I did manage to get three quarters of the report done last night, but my computer had obviously had enough and crashed, so here goes for take 2.

We made our way trouble free to what was our first ever visit to Sandown, which I must say has now joined our list of favourite venues.

We quickly found the O/T bar and were enjoying the complimentary sandwiches, pastries and seemingly never-ending supply of crisps, when we were joined by Anthony who having taken advantage of his early arrival, had been on a pub crawl and found the real ale bar where they served 'proper cider'.

Stuart and Neil joined us shortly after, closely followed by Christine, and we discussed Muffin's chances and given that it was such a strong race I think we were realistically hopeful of a place. Personally, I was imagining 5th or 6th in such a strong field with not the best of draws.

After the second race we began to make our way to the parade ring and met up with Louis who had already discussed tactics with Stuart. The plan was to try to get across the probable hold up horses between Muffin and Frankie Dettori's mount, Film Set, as it was commonly felt that this would be the front runner, and use him as a target and just drop in behind him.

When they went off however, Muffin got a great start and it seemed that Frankie had decided to hold his mount up, so Louis made the brave decision to take the lead as the pace was just not there. We all watched with our hearts in our mouths as Muffin continued to increase his lead from very early on, and I was certainly worried that he would be swamped by four or five approaching the finish, but my fears were unfounded as he just seemed to get stronger with every stride, and was eventually just pipped by Steven Drowne's mount, Prime Exhibit, by I think half a length, although from our viewpoint it looked very much closer. Muffin did however manage to finish quite a few lenghts in front of Spriit of Sharjah who had beaten him by a small margin at Epsom last time out.

As you can imagine, we were all absolutely ecstatic nearing the finish and were thrilled with the result given the company he was keeping.

When we got back to the Winners Enclosure Muffin and Louis quickly arrived and Louis was once again apologising for not winning, but we soon assured him that we were over the moon with both his and Muffin's performance and we couldn\'t have asked for more from either of them. As he dismounted Louis was waxing lyrical about our boy and said that as soon as Muffin had seen the eventual winner out of the corner of his eye, he changed gear again and was still taking him on at the line. I think the actual quote from a very animated Louis was "He's a Gentleman, I Love This Horse, he's so tough, he never gives up, he will definitely win, I Love Him, He's Great!" Muffin of course at this point was just taking a quiet drink and enjoying the adulation of his very proud connections, but I'm sure if he could speak he would just have said, 'HE\'S SO RIGHT!!!' .

Whilst we were watching the presentation, we were approached by a gentleman who I assume was the hospitality manager and were invitied to join the connections of the winning horse in the hospitality lounge for a glass of champagne and to see the race once more, which we thought was a nice touch, althought I think his generosity may have been to do with the fact that the gentleman recognised Christine from her many visits to Sandown previously, so thank you to Christine also.

We obviously discussed the race over and over and Stuart was absolutely thrilled with the performance by both horse and rider, and said that he felt that it was as good a race as Muffin had run, he was beaming.

After all the excitement we found a nice outside table in the shade of a very large tree and had another drink or two (well, rude not to) before dropping Anthony at the nearby station and making our own jubilant way home.

On behalf of TRG, I would once again like to thank Stuart, Judy, Neil and Jamie (I hope I've got his name right) and all at Team Kittow and of course LP and our truly Magnificent, Majestic, Marvellous MUFFIN XX.

Thanks for tuning in - bye for now,

Jackie