Is it just me, or does this feel like one of the dreariest Summer's ever?! I'm pretty sure it's the longest there's ever been, and it's still continuing to get in the way of the 'proper stuff' starting. For godssake bring on the rain and single digit temperatures. I can't wait for them.
Anyway, finally each year, September usually brings us some light at the end of the tunnel. We start to get early news filtering out of the stables, a bunch of internet articles appear profiling horses for the new season, Paul Ferguson and John Morris's books finally arrive, and then the plethora of Stable Tours start kicking off.
Yes sure, some little race meetings at Newmarket, Ascot, Leopardstown, and Longchamp still get in way, but who cares when some bloke you've never heard of puts up his 'ten best selling handicap hurdlers to follow'! The prawn sandwich brigade don't know what they're missing when the rest of us are getting all excited about putting Rose Gasson and Brian Barr 80 rated horses in our trackers. It might be the worst written and grammatically incorrect blog ever written, and not one of the horses will ever be sighted, but it means that the pon(c)y racing is meandering to an end, and we finally have something interesting to fill half an hour before the exciting weeks ahead. News finally coming out from the big Training establishments that the big guns are primed for the season ahead and early season targets are established.
Anyway enough whaffle. it's always useful to have somewhere to keep all of the news links, to follow lists, stable tours, publications, etc together, so I'll kick off with these:
http://www.theracinghub.com/horses-to-follow/
And essential reading:
https://bettrendsshop.co.uk/paul-fergusons-jumpers-to-follow-2019-2020/
http://jumpingprospects.co.uk/
I'm sure some of you guys already have some bits and pieces to add from the internet, social media land, and traditional print, and there'll be plenty more over the coming days and weeks. So I'd encourage you to get anything up you can find to save your fellow 'tragics' from climbing the walls while the sun is still shining and there's still half a chance of a sun tan.