It's been raining all day today.  We've had 30mm of rain, and it's still going.  I like it when it rains.  I also like lying in bed and listening to it.  I'm doing my usual worry about whether Freelance's rug is holding, however touch wood it's ok, because when I checked her this afternoon she was warm and dry underneath her 2 rugs.  I've been tidying up hard drives tonight.  I got slightly off track, because I started it after trying to hunt through for some images I needed to send to a client, and that made me shake my head, and remember that I was in the middle of sorting my hard drives out and hadn't finished!  So I've done a little bit more on this tonight, although technically it wasn't what I intended to do today. For some reason, I went looking through my folders from Flemington on 8 September 2012, which was Makybe Diva Stakes Day.  The following day I spent out at Nagambie and Murchison, with the Great One herself, so that made i...

I had a lovely and funny conversation with turf doyen Les Carlyon at Flemington Racecourse last Saturday.  He jokingly ticked me off and told me I should be working on photographs instead of watching Blackadder at night!  I asked how he knew I had been watching Blackadder!  He replied that he reads my Blog!  So we then proceeded to swap stories of which scenes and lines we liked the best.  I think Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Rowan Atkinson are 3 of the funniest people on the planet!! We both loved the "Flanders Pigeon Murderer" (not the real name) episode, as well as the episode before it when Blackadder 'stole' George's painting and claimed it as his own, with George not allowed to speak without permission.  Hugh Laurie is ace, especially his huge goggly eyed face when where he burst out "Permission to jolly well speak right now sir, otherwise I might just burst like a bally balloon !!!" And let's face it, I like to think that it is a h...

I will begin the first installment of what I hope will become an interesting photo essay on Karuta Queen's journey to the Golden Slipper with a quote from my good friend Les Carylon. " The true arena is, has been, and always will be, the racecourse.  At just about every meeting, horses by $1,000 stallions out of $2,000 mares win city races.  So if you are a battler, don't think too deeply about Bart's $1.1 million dollar colt.  Dream of Vo Gogue ($5,000) and Bonecrusher ($3,250) ".  Chasing a Dream.  Les wrote this piece on 11 April 1988, and therefore the figures in today's terms would be slightly inflated, but the message still remains.  And the little filly I visited yesterday, at the humble stables of her trainer Neville Layt, or "Nifty Nev" as he is fondly known.  Neville trains at Queanbeyan racetrack.  It's a small course.  It does, however, lay claim to being the former home of Takeover Target, who was trained out of this region befor...