EPDS Racing - members visit

We welcomed the EPDS Racing syndicate to the yard on Saturday, 5^th October and it was great to see everyone and meet new members.  We organised for two horses to have their first schooling session over poles – Money Maid (aka Rosie) who is owned by EPDS Racing and our just broken in four yr old, Water Rail (aka Jem).

I’m not against showing owners their horse when they do grid work for the first time, as it can be a bit hit and miss, hopefully when they come back again they can see the improvement.  Money Maid was in fact foot perfect and a natural in shortening her stride and arching her back.  She just tended to over-bend a bit so we will school her next time without the rubber rein on.  She enjoyed it so much, it gave her real confidence and Tracey Sloan from EPDS managed to get a fabulous video of her being turned out in the paddock afterwards - as you can see, she is very pleased with herself!  I couldn't help but go to bed that night quite excited about her future.  It is worth noting that shares are still available in this exciting NH prospect.  Money Maid won her point to point by 25 lengths in Ireland.  She is only 5 yrs old and comes from an excellent family with her grand-dam (Maid of Money) winning the Irish Grand National by 10 lengths, amongst other top class Listed races.  Beating horses in her career like Waterloo Boy and Carvill’s Hill.  Below are Money Maid’s video links to YouTube taken by EPDS and also her advert in the Racing Post last weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTEQNWumleI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQEAJR_zLvE

Water Rail has only been ridden for a few weeks; I just wanted him to get his eye in.  He didn't like being in behind and much preferred to lead the older, more experienced horse – not a bad sign for a horse wanting to be in front! 

It was a super morning, I tried to explain to everyone what we were trying to get the horses to do and I hope it made sense to everyone!  We then headed back to The Angel Pub for a well-deserved pint (or 2!) and a great lunch – a perfect day!  Thank you to everyone for visiting and we hope to see you again soon.

European Trainer Magazine article - 'To shoe or not to shoe...that is the question'

I was delighted to be approached by Lissa Oliver who was writing an article on the rules and regulations in different countries on barefoot racing for The European Trainer Magazine.  It seems a long time ago now (2005) that I trained Saucy Night to be the first racehorse to win a race without wearing shoes.  In those days The Racing Post would make a big thing about it and say ‘the horse ran without shoes’ – now it is not even noticed!  Red Not Blue has now become the best racehorse we've trained to run without shoes with a career high rating over hurdles of 143.  He has won 10 races for us (over hurdles & chasing) and he has never worn shoes since he arrived at the yard back in 2009.  Hopefully you will enjoy reading the article via the link below - p.33 on the internet:

http://issuu.com/anderson-co/docs/issue_43_internet/1

Yard update, Cheltenham Sales & Money Maid and Twitter

Yard update:

                Although we have had a quiet time with runners, we have still been busy on the yard.  Most of the horses are still currently turned out for their summer break so we took the opportunity to clean out the whole yard, power hose and disinfect everything.  A jolly good spring clean!

                The last few runners were scoped after they ran and there was the presence of mucus in their lungs and they didn't perform as I know they can.  We did some analysing of everything that they are in contact with – haylage and bedding - and we found that it was down to the straw.  So after disinfecting the whole yard we have changed the bedding to a flax product called Flaxcore, which is the chopped up stem of the linseed plant.  They have been on it a couple of weeks and we like it so far.

                The trouble with straw is that it only needs to be rained on when harvesting and before being covered and then you get moulds and dust appearing later on.  The batch of straw that we had since Spring time looked perfectly ok, didn't appear to have any mould on it at all but once analysed there was the presence of mould and fungal spores as well as dust mites.  All of this caused an inflammation in the airways of the horses’ lungs so a kind of allergic reaction to the straw.  Luckily this is now behind us and the horses have all been nebulised.

Clean, power-hosed yard!

Cheltenham sales & Money Maid:

                I went to the select Brightwells sale at Cheltenham with John Powell and Tracey Sloan of EPDS Racing with an aim to purchase something a little special.  There were a lot of fantastic horses for sale – plenty of 4 yr old Irish Point to Point winners going for a lot of money.

                Most of the horses were from yards where they buy the horses young and perhaps unbroken and their business is then getting them to win a point to point and sending them to the sales making a profit.  A lot of them looked as if they had been trained hard and maybe too early – they were lacking top line muscle and were sore over their hocks, sacroiliac and pelvis.  I cannot say I particularly enjoyed feeling around them and noticing how sore they were.  It is all about turnover for the vendors and getting them in, winning and sold as soon as possible.  There were lovely, late maturing horses that I felt were just asked to do too much too soon; mind you the horses in training sale at the end of the flat season is even worse – our vet must be failing towards 50%. 

It certainly is better to be an event horse rather than a racing horse because event horses cannot be competed until they are 5 and they are ridden properly throughout their training.  This is why we have taken our time with our 4 yr old and he probably won’t run until he is 5, and hopefully without shoes.  He has been barefoot since birth, and he was foaled in the racing yard and for the past 4 years has been turned out maturing in lovely parkland.  He recently came back to the yard to be broken in.

Our youngster, Water Rail (centre) with Headly's Bridge (left) and Get Back To Me (right)

EPDS Racing did manage to buy a really nice 5 yr old mare called Money Maid who won her point to point in Ireland by an impressive 25 lengths.  She didn't feel over trained at all for her age and she had plenty of condition and muscle through her back and hindquarters.  She has a very good, honest look about her and is by the same sire as our successful Red Not Blue – Blueprint.  Her grandmother was a very good mare, Maid of Money, winning the Irish National and numerous Listed races.  The dam line is very strong and goes back to Ten of Spades who was a very good chaser trained by Fulke Walwyn.  Money Maid (or Rosie as she is known on the yard) won her point to point in very soft ground.  I was impressed by her when the jockey asked her long at the last and she took no notice and fiddled it on her own accord, so she has a brain and in fact if she had taken off when asked I think she would have fallen as it was very deep ground.  She will be turned out for a bit of grass and have a winter season and we aim to hopefully run and train her without shoes.  There are shares available in this exciting prospect so please contact John Powell at EPDS Racing – www.epds-racing.co.uk  tel: 07812 342192.

The impressive Money Maid on her arrival at the yard

Twitter:

                Just to let you know for those that don’t, that I am now on Twitter and slowly joining the 21^st Century!  I often post up photos of the horses so if you want to follow me, please do: @simonearle2. Below are a few photographs that I posted on Twitter for those that don’t hold Twitter accounts.

Owner John Powell with Homer Run and Natalie Charles with Benozzo Gozzoli visiting their horses on a sunny, Saturday morning

Homer Run (left) and Benozzo Gozzoli (right) enjoying a lie-in before working up the all-weather later. Both are currently being trained from the field

Horses in training enjoying a Sunday off - day of rest!

  

Derby competition

                I ran a competition on Twitter asking “Which lead does a horse need to stay on longest and why to be at best in Derby?” and thank you to all those that entered – very interesting to hear your views and the winner is……George Gorman – a bottle of bubbly will be on it’s way to you shortly George.

                George had the only winning answer (he is himself an amateur jumps jockey) whilst a few people had the right lead the reason why wasn’t correct.  George had the correct lead and was closest to the correct answer I was looking for.

                Basically it is all down to the track at Epsom, the reason it is the right lead (leg) is because if you gallop a horse along a camber such as there is all the way up the home straight at Epsom (from Tattenham corner to the winning post) the horse would need to be on the right lead to remain balanced.  The camber runs down towards the inside rail so the right leg would be on the higher side of the camber.  When you see a horse changing to it’s left lead in the long home straight it can often roll about and not use it’s stride properly, often leaning markedly to the left and towards the inner rail.  This was clearly seen in a few races at Epsom and jockeys struggled to keep their horses in a straight line.  Those that remained or switched to a right lead in the home straight ran more balanced and even therefore using their stride more effectively.  In a staying race like the Derby this is a must.

Gridwork today with Benozzo Gozzoli & Get Back To Me

                Below we have two videos of Benozzo Gozzoli (chestnut) and Get Back To Me (dark bay) doing gridwork in the outdoor school this morning.  Ben has done this before many times and we are fine tuning him.  Get Back To Me (Tommy) is at the very early stages learning gridwork and he is steadily improving.

Last weekend's runners: Homer Run, Red Not Blue & Headly's Bridge

                We were happy with our runners last weekend – starting with Homer Run who ran at Stratford last Saturday in a 2m6f handicap hurdle who improved to finish 5^th.  He hasn’t run much so far for us so we are learning about him still.  Brendan Powell junior rode him well and said he would appreciate better ground and maybe a drop back to 2m4f.  He blew up turning into the straight so hopefully there will be improvement from this run.  He is quite a light horse so we don’t work him too hard at home as he tends to worry a bit so it is all about steady improvement on the track.

                Red Not Blue ran in a valuable Class 3 novice chase over 3m1f at Market Rasen last Sunday giving weight to some decent horses.  They went very quick from the start on a very sharp track.  He was flat out all the way and I think was very brave to be getting back into it turning for home.  He was in 3^rd place and gaining when coming to grief at the 2^nd last.  He jumped it perfectly and just crumpled on landing.  Dominic Elsworth who rode him, was happy with his run.  Red Not blue quite often looks beaten and then he digs deep and finds another gear.  He is fine after his fall, just a bit sore in a few places so Anita, our physio, is out next week to give him a treatment.

                Headly’s Bridge ran in a very hot Class 3 handicap hurdle (0-130) at Kempton over 2m5f on Tuesday on ground that he didn’t appreciate as he loves it deep or testing.  He improved to be prominent turning for home and the combination of the ground, the distance of the race (being upped in trip from 2m), and the weight found him out.  The handicapper has given him more weight even though he hasn’t won this season so he has found life tough.  I have emailed the handicapper to see if he would drop him a bit in the weights to give him a chance, so we shall wait and see. 

                Spring seems well and truly here finally so the horses are blooming in their coats and we are looking forward to welcoming those of EPDS Racing to the yard next Saturday, 27^th April for their visit to see their horses.

Welcome back - Shilpa returns to the yard

                It was great to welcome the lovely Shilpa back to the yard on Wednesday.  She has been at the vets in Newbury (O’Gorman, Slater & Main) since her last run at Southwell on 4^th March where she was running well until she was struck into and 30% of her tendon was severed.  This is an improvement on the original estimate of 75% of her tendon.  Shilpa was wearing hardback tendon boots to help protect from this type of injury but the impact went in just above the boot and then in underneath.  Very unfortunate.

                This type of injury can be life threatening and luckily it was only 30% damage.  The more it is, the more trouble you are in plus there is also the threat of infection in the tendon sheath with a greater risk on her life.  After she was stabilised at Southwell racecourse, we drove straight to the Equine Hospital in Newbury and dropped Shilpa off.  It became apparent after 24hrs that she did have an infection so she underwent a general anaesthetic to have the sheath flushed out (with 30 litres of saline!).  Shilpa has pulled through remarkably well and she has certainly been in very good hands as they have been on the case for everything and the treatment has been second to none. 

                Tracey Sloan, who is part of EPDS Racing, and the equine advisor has been to see her numerous times and given her a groom and some carrots, bought her a new rug and checked up on her treatment and progress.  To be honest, I was dreading what colour the rug would be, as I know Tracey had mentioned pink..…but luckily it is a dull pinky red rug so she is allowed to keep it on! 

                For those who know Shilpa, she is one hell of a roller who loves her straw bed second to none so seeing her come back to her lovely clean and fluffed up stable and immediately make it her own was truly amazing.  Some pictures of her below.  We shall be looking after her and hopefully in the next few months update you on her progress and her road to recovery.