It’s good to be back! New season, new ideas, new hats, new mementoes for owners and riders, oh, and some new stickers for owners! Gold for winning (10 points), silver for 2nd (6 points) and bronze for third (4 points). Championship points are earned in any race at an AGA All Comers Championship meeting – there are 24 fixtures – so I think these stickers are going to be popular.
On three of my last four visits to Cottenham I’ve been ‘off the pace’, but not today, I was going to hit the ground running! I was excited – no change there – and Mrs S took great delight in telling anyone who would listen that I had been up since 6am pacing the room ready to leave. That’s partly true, although I wasn’t pacing the room, I was tweeting about being excited!

Ride of the day goes to Gina Andrews, I can’t believe she stayed on Warwickshire in the ladies, good sit!

5 wins in AGA sponsored races for Mrs Rucker, and 3 in a row at Cottenham for Sagalyrique (2012/13 & 14)

The inaugural Subaru Restricted is priced up

A double on the day for Nick Wright and his son, Archie, and Subaru must be chuffed with their first qualifier!

PPA executive, Clare Hazel, joins the Subaru boys to make the presentation to winning connections

I’m not sure whether Mrs S reads the blog so she may not see this… but I think everyone knows that I couldn’t do what I do without her!
So, it was time to take the AGA banners down, and on the way home we reflected on a good first day with lots of positives to take from a very well run point-to-point fixture, although there’s still plenty for me to work on this week. Don’t forget to look out for the latest issue of Go Pointing, which is out on Tuesday, and if you don’t already sign up for it you can do so here. See you at Barbury.