Homer Run

It is with great sadness we report that we lost Homer Run when he got brought down at Towcester on 1^st May.  Firstly I would like to thank everybody for your kind messages and my condolences to everyone involved with EPDS Racing.  Two horses fell in front of him and he had nowhere to go and was brought down heavily.  He had a small haematoma just in front of his girth when he came back to be unsaddled, so we took him straight to the stables for the vet to have a look at him.  The vet gave him a painkiller and advised us to take him home.  The haematoma soon got larger and it was clear to us that even with the painkiller he was still uncomfortable so rather than take him home, we took him immediately from the racecourse to O’Gormans (the equine hospital at Newbury) as soon as possible.  He was in great care and I always thought he would pull through as he is such a fighter but sadly he didn’t make it and it was a real shock to hear the news the following evening.

All the horses in our yard are stars in my mind and it doesn’t matter to me if they win or not or if they do win whether it is The Gold Cup or a selling hurdle.  Homer, I felt was just at the start of his career after having won his previous two races and coming a respectable 3^rd at Kempton, recording his highest Racing Post rating and we all felt that he would make a much better chaser in the coming season.  He was such a tough horse who would put his head down, grit his teeth and try his damndest for you.  He was a great jumper and in all his runs for us I can’t remember him making one mistake.

All the horses have their own individual characters.  Homer was very territorial in his stable and thought that it was his own private space, hence he might take a chunk out of you if you weren’t looking and got too near!  He loved being out in the field with the other horses and I never saw him having an argument with them, he was cheeky out there and was seen many times rolling, bucking and kicking.  In fact the very morning on the day he last ran he was turned out and I saw both him and Headly’s Bridge on their hind legs playing with each other.  He was happy here and he did everything we asked of him and often more.  Homer was a star and will never be forgotten and I can assure you he was having fun right up until he was brought down.

This is only the second time in 15 years of training that I have not brought a horse back from the races.  We have to prepare ourselves for that eventuality but it doesn’t make it any easier seeing the empty box.  I bet if you look at the percentages of horses that run over jumps that don’t make it home, it is very small.

I am sure Homer is happy now jumping clouds in the sky, I bet no one is jumping them better with his ears constantly pricked looking for the next one!

Homer Run in the evening sunlight

With connections after winning at Uttoxeter

Enjoying a roll

With Money Maid (Rosie)

End of the National Hunt season

                 It has been an entertaining season as always.  And it has been great to see some different faces winning the big races and my highlights are:

-          The whole Sire De Grugy story and The Moore family winning the Champion Chase with the horse and Sire De Grugy being named horse of the year.  I remember Gary Moore, the trainer, from my riding days, and he was a real horseman, honest and always tried his best on a lot of moderate horses mostly around the delights of Plumpton and Fontwell.  He probably rode longer than Andrew Thornton (by that I mean in leg length and not the amount of years riding!).  Gary doesn’t seem to have changed much from those days and he deserves what he gets and I just love the fact that he has got an absolute fantastic horse.

-          Dr Richard Newland & Leighton Aspell winning The Grand National and the fact that all the horses came back safe.  A credit to Aintree with the modifications to the course and it certainly hasn’t lost its spectacle.

-          Jim Culloty & Davy Russell winning The Gold Cup with Lord Windermere.  I have always watched Davy since he took ‘the wrong’ course in the cross country at Cheltenham several years ago.  He cut off the corner and went inside some of the hedges whilst the others went around.  It looked sure that he would be disqualified in the stewards’ inquiry but he kept the race, as the course had not been correctly marked.  I thought back then that this guy has balls and must be very shrewd.  It was shock news when Davy lost out on being first choice jockey and ridding all the good horses at Gigginstown.  He took it very well in public and with unlucky Bryan Cooper injured at Cheltenham he was back on Gigginstown horses and won! Davy is an example of a true professional.

For us, in a small way, I have been happy with the season.  We have improved our prize money again from the previous year and we have had 50% of the horses in the money for our owners, which is something we try to do as a minimum.  We haven’t had a faller or unseated rider all year and we have gone through the season again without a single horse getting a tendon injury or breaking down.  We pride ourselves on the horses being schooled well at home and we look after their feet – barefoot of course is key.

Our young horses have been learning their trade and have progressed well.  We have taken things quietly with them so as to set them up well for hopefully many years of fun for their owners to come.  We certainly have a lot to look forward to next season with them.

Each year, since we set up on our own again in November 2007, we have managed to improve on the previous season, all I hope for is steady improvement and I am quite happy for it to be done quietly as I don’t like making a song and dance about things.  We also learn so much from season to season and I hope that we can keep getting better at training horses.  I remember starting out again in November 2007 with just four horses and this year we were almost full (we will always have room for more!).  The quality of the horses is improving.

Some of the things we have improved last season are as follows:

-          Bedding:  It is crucial that we don’t have any mould and fungal spores that could get into the horses lungs and switching to our new type of bedding has definitely helped. 

-          Top quality haylage:  We also always now analyse our haylage when we get the new harvest in the autumn and we check the mineral balance, energy levels and again check this for spores, moulds and dust.  If the mineral balance is out with their diet then that can lead to a whole load of problems.

-          Individual saddles: Most of our horses are very lucky now in that they have their own, made to measure saddles and because of this we have gone through the season without a horse having a sore back.  We don’t have any race exercise saddles now on the yard! 

We have had new owners come to us last season of which I hope they stay with us.  I hope that we can provide all our owners with a good service, keep them regularly informed and be transparent in all that we do.  It is very rare that when training a racehorse that things always go smoothly and there are many ups and downs, I have rarely known a horse go through its training without some sort of set back, mostly minor.  We tell our owners as it is and sometimes there can be despair but we generally get there in the end.  There is a saying that you treat your owners like mushrooms (keep them in the dark and feed them a load of S**t) but for us that does not apply!

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and to the valuable team of staff and practitioners at Simon Earle Racing who look after all the horses so well.  Most of the horses are now enjoying their summer break being turned out in the paddocks so we go into a quiet period now with very little runners.