Paul Nicholls: No racing for me this weekend

A back operation has Paul laid low and unable to attend any meetings, while at the stable a lack of rain is holding back some of the younger horses

If I worked for Betfair, I would have been given an eight-week sicknote from my doctor after my back operation last Friday. But, as it is, I think I have had about eight hours off!

I had hoped to get to Cheltenham on Saturday. But I probably won't be racing until next weekend, either at Chepstow or Aintree, at the earliest.

My back has definitely improved since the operation, but I have be careful for a while.

That means I can't drive until next week. But I am being chauffeured around and have been able to watch the schooling, though I have been office-based for much of the time.

Touch wood, the operation went well.

Before last Friday's operation, while I was waiting to go into theatre, I felt like I was waiting to go to the gallows. But i can assure all the wags in the Manor Inn that I was on my front throughout and definitely had a discetomy, and not a vasectomy!

So I am hold for a while, and so are some of my horses. We desperately need some rain, as I like to get a good school on the grass into my youngsters before they run. But it is good to firm on the schooling ground, so I can't do as much with them as I would like, although they are doing plenty on our sand school.

So the inexperienced novices will need their runs more than usual this season. But the proven horses we think will go well, and win, have done so, like Domtaline.

The horses in general aren't behind as such, but punters should bear the above in mind when betting on my lightly-raced and inexperienced youngsters and novices as, in the case of Silviniaco Conti, I think they will improve enormously for their first run.

Paul Nicholls / 14 Oct 2011