Over-eggscited

The excitement of the Beverley House Stables Easter egg hunt was too much for my two-year-old nephew Rory, who wet two pairs of trousers and had to spend the rest of the afternoon running around bottomless, not that it bothered him at all. We weathered the storm of 11 children between the ages of 22 months and nine years (and their respective parents) here for lunch on Friday which ended up being a really fun afternoon. Perhaps the most excited person of all was the trainer, who, to his obvious delight, found one last chocolate egg when he was doing evening stables long after all the children had departed to be sick in their parents' cars on the way home.

Good Friday evening saw the arrival of my old boss Julian Muscat who was staying with us ahead of an early morning appointment in Newmarket on Saturday. Anthony conned Julian into a few hands of Uno, our new favourite card game, and the six-year-old managed to beat three hapless adults every time.

Saturday, though cold, gave a hint of spring sunshine and Anthony and I spent the morning racing between Railway Land, a grass gallop almost adjacent to the Al Bahathri where six of our horses were galloping, and the Line Gallop on Water Hall to watch and photograph some of Lucy's Wadham's string in action. Sir Michael Stoute and Henry Cecil were both on the Al Bahathri when we were there and Stoute had an enormous entourage of owners in tow. It's hard to put into words the excitement and anticipation that builds in Newmarket as the Craven meeting approaches.

The picture accompanying this shows John on Batgirl, who galloped with First Pressing and Adam (2nd left), Silken Thoughts and Steph (left), Keep Silent and Hugh (grey), and right at the back are Stardust Memories with Hannah (white cap) while the unnamed Desert Sun filly and Rodney are obscured in this shot. We're really looking forward to all of these horses running in the next few months, three of them for the first time in their lives. The long-range forecast for the week says the temperature is set to soar to a balmy 17 degrees. Spring at last and HQ's coming out of hibernation.