AGA Championship gets off to a windy start at Cottenham but ends on a warm note thanks to new friends

The opening day of the 2012/13 point-to-point season had arrived so it was time for the talking to stop and the action to begin - Cottenham here we come. An early start was preceded by an AGA tweet or two ... and an early phone call from owner (and PPA board member) Steven Astaire in which the words "wind" and "strong" were mentioned more than once.

We didn't get much of the new AGA gazebo erected and this was all that we dared to put up, otherwise we feared it may have taken off and ended up somewhere in Cambridgeshire! This presented another problem as the lavish AGA spread - courtesy of Mrs S, had to be relocated to one of the old horse boxes, along with the tables and chairs ... not a great first outing for our new set-up.

As this was not only the opening fixture of the season, but also the only surviving race meeting anywhere in Britain, we had a feeling that a lot of attention would be on the start ... so we targeted the starters rostrum for a bit of creative AGA branding.