Headly's Bridge - 2nd at Leicester

Headly’s Bridge improved again to finish a good second at Leicester in a class 3 handicap hurdle.  Gerard Tumelty gave him another good ride.  It was a shame he ran against a horse that appeared to have a stone in hand, especially as the race was worth £10,000!

We look forward to finding another nice race for him and hopefully going one better for his owner Penelope Bridle.

Benozzo Gozzoli - 2nd at Folkestone

Named after the great Italian artist, Benozzo Gozzoli came 2^nd at Folkestone over 2m 5f in a handicap hurdle.  In 12 previous attempts over jumps the best he has finished was 4^th of 5 over hurdles.  In his last two completed runs over jumps he was beaten 68 lengths and 65 lengths.

This was his first run for us after seven months off and he ran a stormer to finish 2^nd in a very tough race.  We didn’t know what trip he wanted or what ground he liked.  Even his jockey Andrew Thornton, who had ridden him before in races, didn’t know and if you were a form expert and looked through all his races you wouldn’t know!  We decided to run him over 2 ½ miles and the ground was so testing that half the field had had enough with over a mile to go.  Ben was going as well as the winner at the last hurdle down the back and they were the only ones in it.  For me, it was the bravest performance by a horse from our yard this season.  I wish now that I had run him over 2 miles as he really emptied out in the home straight and Andrew did a wonderful job nursing him home to keep 2^nd without beating him up.

          We will respect the fact that Ben gave everything and give him time to recover and we will try and find a race over 2m on better ground.  He is such a genuine horse and a gentleman in every way.  I would love it if we could improve him more and get his owner, John Powell, in the winners’ enclosure again!

Shilpa wins at Fakenham at 33-1

My apologies to Shilpa for not mentioning her until now!  On 10^th December we took Shilpa to Fakenham to run in a 2m handicap hurdle.  We were in search of better ground and didn’t find it.  But we thought it might be better there than anywhere else at the time and as we knew she wouldn’t harm herself, we thought we would give it a go after discussions with the owners.  We were looking for improvement in her but couldn’t say how she would handle conditions.

We hoped we had her right as she had worked 6 pounds ahead of the handicapper at home the previous week.  Under a very good ride by Gerard Tumelty she jumped to the front at the last and won at great odds of 33-1!

This was a very satisfying win as she had taken a bit of getting right and everyone at the yard had a hand to play in it.  The owners too, need a pat on the back for sticking with her and keeping faith, thank you to you all.

I travelled up to Fakenham the afternoon before, definitely a wise plan.  And I would like to say thank you to Fakenham for providing £7,500 in prize money and Betfair for giving the stable lad who led up the winner (me!) £25 – of which I gave to the girls who covered the yard back at home – and thank you to Betfair for providing the staff in the stable lads canteen with free food!  I did enjoy my full English breakfast in the morning after I gave her a canter around the track, as I was wet through.  Perhaps we will go back there again and the local beer, Wherry, is rather good too! 

It was great that John Powell, an owner and the man who runs the racing partnership, was able to be there (he said he did more than fill his pockets with cash from the bookies!) and I am sorry other members of the partnership were not there but it is a long way to go.  I would recommend a visit to the North Norfolk coast, as it is beautiful with great places to eat.  Fakenham as a racecourse often gets bad press as it is such a long way to go, but it is well worth the trip - even more so with a winner on board the lorry on the way home….  

Loxley Mezile

Loxley Mezile (or Poppy as she is known on the yard) had her first introduction to the racecourse on Tuesday at Lingfield in a 3yo junior bumper (luckily run on the all weather as the ground was very heavy).  Poppy travelled to the racecourse perfectly relaxed in the lorry and was very well behaved in the preliminaries – especially when there was a loose horse in the pre-parade ring!  Poppy turned her rear towards the loose horse and was in perfect range to double barrel but thankfully she politely refrained!

Gerard Tumelty rode her and gave her a lovely introduction.  He relaxed her out the back and then let her run on up the straight, which she did nicely.  She then got squeezed up on the rail and ran out of room.  We think she would have finished a lot closer with a clear run.

Being a 3yo filly, I was not hard on her at home and I would hope she improves a fair bit for this run.

Well done to Tracey Sloan and John Powell of EPDS Racing for finding such a nice filly – exciting times! 

Autumn to Winter

The clocks have now changed and it is the turn of the winter jumpers and to say goodbye to the summer and autumn.  It has been a fantastic summer if you are a horse as the ground has rarely been firm.  Looking at the results in The Racing Post daily, I am pleased to say I have never seen so few pull up or finish lame.  I cannot bear to see any horse break down and I just feel a lot of it can be avoided. 

It has also been a good summer for British sport away from racing – the Olympics, Tennis, Tour de France, Para-Olympics etc..  Some people have taken some sort of inspiration from it all.  When I was a jockey I would always look to an athlete for inspiration, now that I am a trainer I am looking at coaches and seeing what they are doing.  The stand out person here for me is David Brailsford, team principle of British Cycling and Team Sky of road cycling.  He is talked about as the greatest British coach ever and it is amazing what he has achieved.  I read the book – Sky’s The Limit – which is all about the time Dave started to set up a road racing team and 3 years later they have 1^st and 2^nd in The Tour de France!  He set out to win the Tour de France with a clean (i.e. drug free) British rider in 5 years – everybody thought he was mad and said it wasn’t possible!  It is interesting what you can learn from other sports and apply to your own.  I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in improvement!

The winter jump horses are bang on and due to run soon (first runner on Saturday at Wincanton with another diary entry to follow shortly on that race) and we are really pleased with them all; so we are hoping the horses will warm us up!  Frosty mornings are now back, so winter and the excitement of the National Hunt season truly begins… 

EPDS Racing yard visit

                   Last Saturday we welcomed EPDS Racing to the yard to see their horses.  It was a great opportunity for existing and new members to meet their horses, see the yard and have a chat.  The horses were in fine form and Shilpa and Poppy worked on the local all weather.  It was a super cold day but we braved the elements for the most beautiful day at the top of the gallops.  Please see some pictures and the great blog about the day from Tracey Sloan (link: http://epdsracing.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/f-f-f-freezing-but-fun-yard-visit.html ).  I certainly enjoyed my pint afterwards with them at The Angel Coaching Inn!

Schooling Fences & Hurdles

Andy Ross and his friend, Tim Holt, came to re-stuff our fences for the new season and a very good job he has done too.  Andy works on the fences at a lot of the point-to-point courses in the West Country and has been well known for doing so for some time now.  He also told me about his successes as a Greyhound trainer and how he has managed to improve some of the dogs from other trainers.  After speaking with him I found out that there are similarities with the training of horses; he said he keeps his dogs happy and relaxed, varies their work, feeds them well, worms them regularly and takes close attention to their electrolyte levels.  Tim Holt also does racecourse photography so we look forward to some pictures of some winners in the West Country!

As you can see from the picture below, the open ditch is looking quite a lot better!  It is certainly an expensive job re-stuffing the fences as the birch costs £5 per bundle and I reckon each fence took over 70 bundles and that’s before we paid Mr Ross & Co for their couple of days’ work – I might well have to start working in the pub at nights!  It certainly is money well spent though, ironing out any jumping problems we might have at home and replicating what they will see on the track.

To contact Andrew Ross for your fences etc., please visit his website: www.racejumps.co.uk

The re-stuffed open ditch