A game of inches

George (Email Exit) finished 9th in his handicap in Deauville yesterday, which sounds worse than it was – just a half-length away from a check. We’ve been close lately, but not quite there. He was going back to 1,900 meters after running 1,300 last time out; because of that, I told the jockey not to bother him too much at the start so we had some gas left for the finish (since the strikes have hit France, I guess I’m a little obsessed about conserving gas). Unfortunately, that left us with too much to do in the stretch, and George couldn’t quite get there. The race also had absolutely no pace, which didn’t do us any favors, either. But he came back well and he should definitely take a check in this kind of race again if we let him press the pace with the leaders next time out. He is in good form, and is starting to pick up a little attitude at the track – he decided he would go into his box only when he was good and ready, which wasn’t necessarily when WE wanted him in the box. I did win that argument, if a bit unconventionally. Turns out my friend Leah was filming; you can see it if you are on Facebook. (Apologies for that – I find Facebook as annoying as the next person, but I couldn’t figure out how to extract the video from the site.)