Winning Post

Francome teaches at pony day

Yesterday I took a rare day off and we went up to Hartpury College in Gloucestershire for the Pony Club's Pony Racing Day. It was the first time the Pony Club, which runs the Charles Owen racecourse series of races as opposed to the Charles Owen point to point series, has organised the training day and they had former top jockeys John Francome, Peter Scudamore, Steve Smith Eccles and Marcus Armytage on hand to give some advice to the children, as well as 'Chocolate' Thornton. It was a good day - even if some of the officials weren't too hot on their own rules - with interesting talks to keep the parents occupied while the children were having separate tuition sessions. Funniest moment of the day was when one of the dads asked Marcus A whether he was nervous or not when he won the Grand National on Seagram! A slightly nonplussed Armytage replied: "Well I don't know - I won the race on Mr Frisk!” There was a great talk on nutrition from Dengie Horsefeeds, where the reps unravelled 20 metres of bright pink 'horse intestine' from a holdall! As usual John Francome was completely brilliant - I hope the children appreciated the day.