Video from Friday of Snowy Valley, Benozzo Gozzoli and Shilpa

                Below are two videos taken on Friday.  The first video shows Camilla Howard on Benozzo Gozzoli and Luke Kilgarriff on Snowy Valley after their gallop on the grass last Friday morning.  Ben worked along sides Headly’s Bridge (who I am on) and they both went well.  We are very much looking forward to all three of these horses running shortly. 

                The second video is of Shilpa having a canter on a stretch of grass we call ‘Big Down’, a wonderful long straight and you can see she is clearly enjoying herself.  Sorry for the wobbly camerawork and I hope it doesn’t make you feel too seasick!  We are purchasing a head mount shortly so I can fix the camera to my helmet making for a smoother ride for all!

Benozzo Gozzoli & Snowy Valley

Shilpa

Putting shoes on!

                For the first time in many years we have had to put shoes on most of the barefoot horses.  We have been having to do more road work because the grass is so wet therefore the feet have been getting more wear than growth and a few of the horses were getting a bit sore.  We would be planning to take them off once it gets drier in the spring.

                I would agree with Chris Keable (our farrier & trimmer) who said – we much prefer to see a horse moving and going well without shoes but we also don’t like to see them struggling.  The horses are here to race and are not garden ornaments so the shoes go on and we keep going.  What is all important to prevent a horse getting a leg is to make sure the angles of the foot are correct and we feel our horses' feet are in a good place still, so hopefully they will not be having shoes on for long.

                Unfortunately over 90% of racehorses get a tendon injury at some point in their career.  Since Chris has been working for us this has not happened and I can’t recall the last one with a tendon strain – we are talking over 5 years now (I am touching wood whilst writing this!). 

Monday morning video

                Monday mornings for the horses can sometimes mean trotting on the roads up Haycombe Hill or a canter up the banks nearby.  Haycombe Hill isn’t just a gentle trot – it rises, in just over 1km, by 100m.  Today we went for a canter up the banks nearby and here you see (from left to right) Red Not Blue (ridden by Kelly Baker), myself on Snowy Valley and Benozzo Gozzoli (ridden by Holly Brown).  All the horses worked well and came home full of energy. 

Red Not Blue, Snowy Valley & Benozzo Gozzoli after a canter up the banks

The cold snap

                I’m often asked how we cope in the cold snaps and what happens when the snow falls.  Well, it makes for jolly hard work all round, no holidays here.  The staff become heroes just getting to work and it can take a good couple of hours to clear the walker and pathways to make sure it is safe to get horses out.  Keeping them all going in some capacity is key.

                Below is my first use of the little video camera I was given by Katie for Christmas (hence the rather amateurish use of it!).  Here I am cantering Benny up the nearby bank in the snow (not sure who is blowing more - me or the horse!). 

                During the cold snap it really is like working in a giant refrigerator all week.  The all weather gallops were out of use and the roads were impassable for a few days so there isn’t much we can do.  We did de-ice the walker twice a day, every day and salt the outdoor school and we led the horses through the field to the walker and put the time to good use by doing plenty of lunging in the outdoor school.  Benozzo Gozzoli was the only horse we ran as he was having a spin on the all weather on the flat to keep him ticking over.

                To be honest, it hasn’t done the horses any harm by having an easier week and the lunging has done them all good.  Also, since the freeze there hasn’t been much in the way of races to run them in with so much of racing being off because of the snow and then water logging and now pretty heavy ground.   We won’t have much to run for a week or two as a consequence but I am sure they will run well when they do.

The yard in snow

Cantering Benozzo Gozzoli

Get Back To Me arrives to the yard

                I would like to introduce you to a new arrival to the yard – Get Back To Me (IRE) – or Tommy as he is now known on the yard.  Get Back To Me is a 6 yr old gelding by Presenting.  He has good form in Irish National Hunt Flat races and if you look closely at the horses he has run against and how they have run since, it shows that the form has worked out well.  Robert Dacombe who has had many horses with us over the years owns Tommy.

                Tommy is a lovely, big horse who has scope but needs a bit of strengthening up behind.  Rather than run him immediately after he had settled in (as he was fit from his races in Ireland), it was decided to bide our time and at the same time be of benefit to re-school him in his work – get him to drop his head more, use himself better and bypass the dreadful ground we have been having.  Hopefully he will run on better ground (if it ever comes!) in early March.  So far he has been learning well and yesterday cantered for the first time.  He gave me a wonderful feel.

                We had been looking out for a decent horse to buy privately out of Ireland for some time.  I have an excellent contact in Ireland who we have so far bought 6 horses through and five have won.  The one that didn’t win, finished 3^rd so not bad at all!  My friend in Ireland spotted Get Back To Me and made enquiries.  I sped out to Ireland and had a wonderful couple of days, although missed my flight back.  I hasten to add not spending too much time in the bars drinking Guinness – but taking longer to have Tommy seen by the vet before his purchase and making sure a thorough examination took place.  Tommy arrived into Cheltenham the following week and has been with us since mid-December settling in.  We couldn’t be more thrilled to have him in the yard.  He is very gentle and good to do in every way. 

                We very much look forward to his first run and more updates will follow.

Get Back To Me after exercise

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!