Owners visit

Yesterday it was great to welcome James & Jane Symonds to the yard to see their horse, Fairwood Dante, work on the grass.  The ground was lovely, as we have had quite a bit of rain!  We are also lucky because if it doesn’t rain, we have a lovely place we try and only use in the summer, which has great old downland turf with moss in it, and it is always springy.

Fairwood Dante is back galloping and I am very pleased with him and he is settling great and moving well.  We are hopeful that we can give his sporting owners some fun during the winter. 

Dante (the dog!) on the left with James and Jane Symonds (and Merlin the black lab), coming to visit Fairwood Dante

We also had a lovely lunch at the Symonds’ last Sunday where I was lucky to sit opposite Toby Balding.  It was great to talk with him about the past and people we knew in common.  He has trained Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Grand National winners plus Breeder’s Cup Chases (with Morley Street).  I could have spoken with him for hours.  I have great respect for the Baldings as I started life in racing as an apprentice with Toby’s brother Ian.   Although I was always going to go jumping, Sue Horton found me the job at Ian Balding’s flat yard when I was 14 and I can’t tell you how much I learnt there.

EPDS Racing visit to the yard

It was great to welcome John Powell and Tracey Sloan of EPDS Racing to the yard the other day to see their horses.  Sometimes it is good for owners to go and have a bit of quality time with them out in the paddock and this is a lovely picture below.

Tracey has a good eye for a horse and I am always interested to hear what she thinks of their horses as she might only see them once a month and so she notices any change.  I think she thought Homer Run had improved the most.  He has now put on good condition and top line and we felt that now was the time to start walking him after his summer break.  We are hoping that he will now improve as he has had time to strengthen up and forget about the stresses of being in hard work.  He gets on really well with the other horses in the field and has settled very well into his surroundings and the routine.  Don’t forget that there are shares available in this exciting young prospect and EPDS Racing can be contacted via John Powell on tel: 07812 342192 and their website is: www.epds-racing.co.uk .

Steve & Helen Newton also came to the yard to visit ‘Poppy’ whom they have a share in.  They have a retired racehorse of ours called Kavi who won on the flat, over hurdles and fences for Mr Robert Dacombe and the update is that Kavi is enjoying a wonderful and well deserved (barefoot!) retirement.  The picture below if of Poppy (right), Headly’s Bridge (middle) with Outside the Box (left).

Uttoxeter - another win for Red Not Blue with AP McCoy on board

                We had another great day courtesy of Red Not Blue at Uttoxeter on Wednesday, running this time over hurdles over 2m4f.  It was again 24hrs of predicting what the ground would be like and what weather we might get as the horse can be ground sensitive and mostly he wants good ground, but not too firm.  The day before the race the ground would have been too firm for him with a going stick reading of 8.2.  Then water was put on and in the morning of the race the ground was still called Good to Firm but with a going stick reading of 7.7 (the higher the reading the firmer the ground).  After a chat with Charlie Moore (the Clerk of The Course), it was decided that we would make the journey to the racecourse and if I wasn’t happy with the ground after walking the course then we would not run and bring him home.

                We unloaded Red Not Blue at the stables and it started to rain by which time the first race had been run and Tom Scudamore told me it was good to soft!  It continued to rain heavier and heavier so by the time of his race it was soft and there was nobody to be seen in the paddock – everyone was in the bar, apart from the diehards of The Plum Merchants!  It appeared the jockeys were also in the bar or hanging back in the weighing room to keep as dry as possible but last to leave was AP McCoy with The Plum Merchants’ colours on, which gave us some encouragement that he was coming into the paddock to ride, rather than his car to go home!  By this time I was totally uncomfortable by spending so much time so close to The Brigadier (Mr Brian Lewis) under his umbrella that I went to talk to McCoy.  The plan was hatched that it would be time to go hunting and not racing as the ground had deteriorated badly and all was left to the champion jockey to do what he felt best.  He brought him home beautifully in front – what a day!  The Racing Post said ‘Red Not Blue ran on very gamely’, this was his 9^th win.

Again I am very proud of Red Not Blue who I nicknamed ‘Dark Horse’ many years ago because I felt he had such great ability and would surprise us!  He has certainly done that and his two latest runs are arguably his best.  At the age of 9 that is no mean feat and we look forward to hopefully many more races and wins to come.  Thank you to all the staff at home for another great effort.

Winner at Worcester

                It was lovely to have a winner whilst we were away on holiday in Alderney for two weeks.  Holly Brown was in charge and it is great credit to her that everything went smoothly.  Holly has been working for us since December last year and she was previously head girl in an eventing yard before coming to us.  Credit must also go to Sam Goldsmith and Luke Kilgarriff plus Wally Irvine for doing the horse transport.

                Red Not Blue won his 8^th race and 2^nd Novice Chase on 21^st August over 2m7f at Worcester.  Unfortunately Andrew Thornton, who usually rides him, was out of action so AP McCoy (BBC Sports Personality of the year and Champion Jockey!) took over.  We spoke on the phone before the race and AP had already spoken with Andrew.  After the race, AP said he could have won and put the race to bed three fences from home when he was clear, but instead he looked after the horse over the last three fences and they headed him at the last and he still won by four lengths.  Some people think that McCoy wins on horses at all costs, but my experience of him is to the contrary; he looked after Red Not Blue and nursed him home.  Races are now in short supply for Red Not Blue both over hurdles and chases so we will see what happens next.  He came out of his race very well indeed.