SURPRISE RELOCATION, MY LOVE FOR JANE MAY HAVE WANED, FRIENDLY SOUL & KA YING RISING.

The Bowens are a mighty National Hunt family. Mother, father, champion jockey, champion jockey's brother and Mickey, the current holder of the trainers licence, are all perpetual winners. A proper old-fashioned family unit; hurt one member of the family and you hurt every one of them. It is why I was surprised to read in today's Racing Post that Mickey will, in the next 12-months, relocate from the family farm at Yet-Y-Rhug, Letterston, in Haverfordwest, to Hanley Swan in Worcestershire.

I doubt if Mickey Bowen truly wanted to move away from home. It seems that economics was the deciding factor in his decision. He cites travel and location as the primary reason for the upheaval. North Wales may be heavenly for holiday makers in search of peace and quiet but in the winter Bowen believes the air conditions, muggy and damp, are the reason the stable does not do so well through the main core of the season. His father was always a spring, summer and autumn trainer, with winter normally a wash-out for his otherwise successful career. The move is an ultra-professional adventure; I bet it pays off.

I have in the past expressed my grandfatherly admiration for Jane Mangan, a picture of whom I could stare at all morning and not think the hours wasted. Well, after watching her standing in (or sitting in) for Nick Luck on Sunday (he was no doubt commentating on the Burghley Horse Trials) my admiration has dimmed a good bit. Firstly, her love of tweed and choice of headband, a thing that looks more like a mutilated tiara a child might wear, deflects from her natural Irish beauty. Now, she dresses to please herself, as we all do, in the main, and I have no right to criticise the image of herself she creates. But I do have the right to take to task the words that fall from her lovely lips and quite often she comes across as a bit of a sanctimonius madam and, also, and we are all have a right to our opinions, but Jane does not always give the impression of accepting the views of others as being legimate if they clash with her own.

I dare say when I see her next alongside Ruby Walsh, my old feelings will re-emerge and I will easily forgive her for her failings, even though, I suspect, she would might be slow to forgive me for my failings. What happened yesterday was that I realised for the first time that if we were seated at the same table for a hour or two we would doubtless be falling out within the first few minutes over something one of us would think awfully wrong or even offensive. As if I would ever recive an invitation that would have me sitting at a table with Jane Mangan. I could not even dream about such a thing. God no! I know my place and it is not in the circle of racing society that Jane moves in.

Hands up, I was completely wrong about Friendly Soul. After York, I wrote that Diamond Necklace had beaten nothing of note. Yesterday, aided by a brilliant ride from James Doyle, she won the Prix Vermeille, her first time at 12-furlongs, in good style and is now a possibility for the Arc. What a fool! It is a good job that I am a minor fool amongst even bigger named fools. Horses make monkeys out of all of us, some more than others.

I cannot get excited by Ka Ying Rising as I have no love or knowledge of racing in Hong Kong. He could be beating sprinters that would be no better than handicap company if they were to be trained in Britain or they might by Asfoora class and winning Group 1's if trained in this country. What cannot be denied is that it takes a very, very good horse to lower a track record by a full second, especially when the opposition could not get him off the bridle. It is unfortunate that the horse has owners who prefer to chase big pots of money rather than discover where either the limitations of their horse might lie than to experience new highs by shipping him to Europe for Royal Ascot and perhaps the Nunthorpe. The horse has already won a colossal amount of prize-money, with his next assignment in Australia a race worth 10-million Australian dollars to the winner. 1-million British pounds may seem chicken-feed by comparison, though I would argue that the prestige in winning in Europe far exceeds anything the horse could achieve in his part of the world.