Ruby Walsh: Onwards and upwards as weekly routine is on horizon

So Wonderful and Seamie Heffernan (left) win the M.D. O’Shea And Sons Vincent O’Brien Ruby Stakes at Killarney yesterday. Picture:Healy Racing

The longest school holidays of my life are almost at an end. How I would have loved 24 weeks off school when I had to don a school uniform, but the days are closing in and the normality of a weekly routine is on the horizon.

The doors at set to open at our local national school next Thursday and my girls are bursting with excitement to return to an educational system I never really enjoyed. But I suppose when I had summer holidays that’s what they were, not what we have now.

Killarney and York have run through this week like they always do but added themselves to the list of soulless events that are the new normal. Our social lives continue to be non-existent and if you happen, like I do, to live in Kildare it really is all work and no play.

Life has to move on and, being fair and not blinkered, that’s what racing has been doing since June 8. The Derby, Guineas, Oaks, Galway and all the summer festivals have run their course, the inter-pros start today, the club championships are moving along and the inter county looks like kicking off next month.

Racing has shown others that where there is a will, there is a way and, as winter looms with all the hassle it could bring, sport on our TVs is going to be more important than ever it was.

The lockdown of the early spring/summer with long days and warm weather will have been a cakewalk compared to what could be coming.

Blaming X or being jealous of what Y can do is not really going to make this virus disappear. NPHET are basically telling us to work but don’t play because the economy has to turn, yet the spread has to be managed.

It is not fun, and it won’t be fun for a long while yet, but I know I have to look for the positives to see a way a through as the negatives only make me want to stay in bed.

Love is going to try to beat Enable in the Arc in October. Maybe Ghaiyyath will come to Leopardstown in September and join Alpine Star, Magical and a host of others on Champions Weekend.

I will be rooting for Micro Manage in the St Leger after his nice comeback run last week in the Leger Trial. A week later an empty Listowel will stage its Harvest Festival, which sort of ushers in the new National Hunt season.

Al Boum Photo, Min, Saint Roi, Ferny Hollow, Monkfish, Benie Des Dieux, et al are in their pre-season regime, clocking up the slow miles of fitness to entertain us this winter.

The search within the Closutton confines has started for the next superstar but the regime of restocking never stopped. French imports I can’t spell, let alone pronounce, flash by each morning in their slow paces, all bursting with potential before the reality of competition begins.

No doubt Gordon Elliott’s, Henry de Bromhead’s, Nicky Henderson’s and Paul Nicholls’ squads are all the same.

The economic reality of what is coming started to play out at Goffs and Tattersalls already this month. The top lots were still strong, the middle took a hit and the bottom end of the market was as weak as normal.

But people traded, some bought, some sold, some got out and others lost but they dealt and moved on. Reinvestments were made and people tended to look at the value they got on the reinvestment over the hit they took on the sale.

Key to all that reinvestment will be the upcoming fate of the point to point season, but the show has to keep rolling.

Willie Mullins sends his first runners abroad this weekend since Cheltenham back in March and True Self contests today’s Ebor at York in the hope of booking herself a trip back Down Under next month for a tilt at November’s Melbourne cup. I think she is in super form and I hope the tail end of Storm Ellen misses the Knavesmire.

At Killarney, Fan Des Blues has the experience over fences that he can hopefully put to use and beat the classier A Wave Of The Sea at 4.35. La Sorelita goes up against Galvin at 5.05 but he could prove to be too much for her, and I think David Mullins could be on the right one in the next. Livelovelaugh doesn’t win very often but I think the track, trip and ground could be perfect for him.