Alarm call at 5:30am, out of the flat at 6am. The drive to Jamie Snowden's was pleasant enough and I was confident of arriving at 8am in time for Breakfast and to watch the 2nd lot train at 8:30. However, satellite navigation let us down and we didn't make it there until gone 9am, which was a little disappointing considering that we missed the only jumping session although we did see his 3rd lot working on the Lambourne gallops.
Met both Will Featherstone (who had a 20/1 winner for the yard a few days ago) and their apprentice Paige Fuller.
Jamie was very forthright and answered all the questions that I asked of him. From his website I deduced that he was previously a Captain in the army (4 years service) and from the visit I discovered that many of his owners have military backgrounds, including, it would seem, Paige's dad, who I presume Capt J Fuller who had a ride in 1997 for David Evans according to HRB. Paige's parents have recently bought Major Millbourne for her to ride competitively.
Chesham - he said that he normally weighs up the opposition in a race before confirming a runner. I didn't press him on this but I'm assuming it must be in terms of OR. He showed us the BHA admin site for a few races tomorrow and was checking them off against an RP racecard that he'd previously printed. I'm pretty certain that he doesn't use a private handicapper.
I asked him the reason why Our Reward held multiple entries when winning at 20/1 and Orchard Park who ran in the same race didn't, and he told me that Orchard Park did hold previous entries but got withdrawn and that his owner has recently moved to France and the 3rd was the latest date that he could be there to watch his runner run.
I think I quite impressed him when I told him of his record when using runners that held multiple entries!