I HAVE been on the road for two weeks, looking at yearlings. Clients react differently to the face masks that the sales company agents are now wearing and, while some vendors see them as unnecessary, they are undoubtedly reassuring to others. If wearing them allays the fear of just one person, it is a worthwhile course of action.

It was not very long ago that people rode racehorses and bicycles in soft caps, and skiers settled for woolly hats. All are in helmets nowadays. Chainsaws and other machinery were operated without any protective clothing, but no longer, and correctly so. I imagine that we may all get used to masks being here to stay, although perhaps in a reduced number of specific interior situations.

Between the application of sunscreen and my Berthas Revenge hand sanitizer, I have never been as fragrant on arrival at any farm. Because everybody is at home, and we are uninterrupted by other sales, I am progressing well. I feel sorry for any vendor who had planned to sneak off to an illicit get-together and has had their plans thwarted by our scheduling – that is a hard one for anybody to get out of.

Since we have been able to start “outdoor work”, I have been to some of the finest farms in Ireland; if they were restaurants, several would be carrying three Michelin stars. Whether in Meath, Tipperary, Offaly or Kildare, it has been a timely and uplifting reminder why any aspirational breeder in the world might want to own a farm in Ireland. Let’s hope that this “month of Sundays” – the enforced sabbatical from which we are hopefully soon to emerge – will have left others equally re-invigorated after the break.

Driving between farms, I keep wondering if there is some other golden covid-related career opportunity that I am overlooking. Face masks in racing colours might look smart on jockeys and could make an attractive twin set with the scarves favoured by some syndicates or well supported racehorses. It is however a limited market and I cannot see much of an opening for me there with my sewing skills.

Baby boom

Supplying any post-covid baby boom will also pass me by and I am assured by a friend in the pharmaceutical world that the demand for morning sickness prescription is ahead of normal figures. No surprise there but, in line with most parents locked up with children, I can only imagine that the majority of these pregnancies will be with a first child.

Other than that, and stimulated by my daughter Lara’s missed First Communion earlier this month, my favoured invention for the Dragon’s Den is a Holy Communion dispenser, along the lines of a toy gun that fires small sponge discs, but without the Space Invader sound effects. I would not totally trust the aim of a couple of my local Eucharistic ministers and I can already foresee the ensuing conversations with Joe Duffy, but the project just might have legs.

Our older daughter Lucy, along with a friend who has been isolating with us, has been busy cleaning the Ballinlough windows. Unfortunately for her, there are quite a few, and their 18th century design does not really suit teenager novices and a Woodie’s window-cleaning starter set.

This has not dented their enthusiasm and, if colleges do not resume, they think that they may have identified a business opportunity. I however do not. They have done a sparkling job but, even as I write, a bird has already made its mark bang in the middle of one of the window panes beside me. But how? It is a completely vertical surface with nothing above to perch on.

This particular swallow must have used something akin to the technology of Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb, made famous in The Dam Busters, flying at speed towards the window, then wheeling off at the very last moment while opening the trapdoors.

Nature is a wonderful thing.

THIS week I received another social media nomination to partake in Push-Ups for Parkinson’s. This is a fundraising initiative started by former jockey Jamie Railton, whose mother Rosemary died last August, having been diagnosed with the dreaded affliction back in 2006.

As Jamie says: “Before my Mother’s diagnosis, my knowledge of Parkinson’s disease was very limited. However, I did know that if Mohammed Ali, one of the greatest sportsmen and spokesmen of the modern era, couldn’t defeat it, my mother was going to struggle.”

I do not know Jamie terribly well but can vividly remember first meeting him back in the mid-1980s. On that occasion, he had just parted company with a horse on the way back to Nicky Henderson’s yard, which was then at Windsor House at the top of Lambourn High Street, coincidentally where both my grandfather and my great-great grandfather trained earlier in the 20th century.

Regrettably, the experience of being face down in the middle of the road between Lambourn and Upper Lambourn has not put Jamie off resuming a similar position in the gym, which might have spared me the inevitable impending embarrassment.

Luckily his secondary career, as a leading sales consignor and pinhooker, means that I encounter him these days in an upright position. Hopefully his latest initiative will get some of the traction that the “Do it for Dan” raw egg challenge achieved on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Setting aside the more worthy aspects of this nomination, I really dread the thought of trying to do just one push up in private, let alone a number of them on camera. Some people of course like pushing their body off the floor, or pushing weights in a gym. That is their choice, but I am not among them.

I like pushing food into my mouth or pushing the buttons of the remote control. I never much enjoyed lying on my front, even before my stomach expanded its premises more than a decade ago. I am afraid that those extra pounds are not going to make it any easier, but I will give it a go.

TOM Egan’s letter in last week’s newspaper opined that racehorse owners were being overlooked, by not being allowed to attend racing when it resumes shortly. I agree that “the fundamental reason why owners have racehorses is to see them run”, although this is not universally applicable.

I would suggest that most owners (including the one that I am married to) see the basic resumption of racing taking place as such a relief that it offsets any disappointment that she may have to watch her filly run on the television for the time being.

Owners are undoubtedly the foundation on which the sport’s house is built but the critical performers at a race meeting are quite simply the horses, the jockeys and at least one attendant per animal.

A trainer may have some use, either tactical or operational, but not the owner. For many of them, the racecourse experience normally includes interaction with other owners, trainers, racegoers, press and bookmakers, often accompanied by some sort of refreshment.

With the logistical barriers currently in place, most owners’ on-course experience is arguably so compromised that they are better at home until those other component parts are on offer again. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later and the same goes for Tom Egan’s Horse and Jockey being able to once again accommodate returning racegoers as it has done so well for many years.