Tunda settles in

John has talked about about Tunda on his blog but another week has passed and with significant updates. First and foremost, Tunda is not Hungarian but Slovakian (though she goes to racing school in Hungary which accounts for the confusion).

She has not only now learnt a significant amount of English through Hugh and Martha being so kind, patient and welcoming to her, but in a short space of time, her riding has really improved, thanks this time to a patient approach from John.

It's probably fair to say that we have one of the weirdest stables in town (not in the country but by Newmarket's staid standards, the appearance of the string doubtless raises some eyebrows). That said, we have pretty good opposition for this title from our near neighbour Don Cantillon (pictured with the lovely Chip), who conducts the daily comings and goings of his staff in a similarly unorthodox fashion. He gets great results though and I had enormous fun chatting to Don earlier in the week for the H&H column, which was almost as enjoyable to write as a small feature on the new career of the great G1-winning sprinter Cape Of Good Hope, which might appear at some stage in the Post.

Anyway, the point of this rambling is that weird we may be but having just had a really pleasant if disjointed chat with Tunda, I believe she's really enjoying working with Hugh and Martha and getting a chance to ride out daily on the heath. She's been so diligent and a pleasure to have around and it's been great to see her go from being almost completely silent last week to making a genuine effort to chat to the team and, most of all, smiling all the time. Not many 17-year-olds would be so gregarious in a country where they barely knew the language. She's only here for another week and a half and I hope she enjoys being here as much as we appreciate having her around.