Blog fifty three
Good Monday Morning
To start this fantastic week ahead, a thought from Winnie The Pooh; “I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I’ve been…”
Last week was blog 52, which was a year of uninterrupted Monday blogging. There were many ups and downs during this period but the blog was consistently delivered every Monday and today starts blog 53 which is effectively the first one of the new year. Exciting times and I look forward to keeping the weekly blog going for another year, hopefully with some decent winners along the way to talk about.
It’s Cheltenham this week and for the first time, I have the privilege of attending the first two days, along with a few clients of ours and both our syndicates racing managers Jordan Hopkins and Andrew O’Connor. I am particularly excited to see Constitution Hill in the flesh and look forward to having two days in the Cotswolds. We arrive in Cheltenham this evening and I look forward to a walk around soaking up the atmosphere. From a personal point of view, the sideshow of England versus Ireland is also exciting and I hope it’s as evenly spread as last year. Judging by the weather forecast, I would be looking for value and bigger priced mud larks. May all the horses and jockeys have a safe week ahead. If anyone is in the area, we would be happy to meet up for a drink during the next 2/3 days as we are due to arrive this evening and leave on Wednesday after racing.
After last weeks Saudi Cup Day winner from HQ, Mostadaf for the Gosden’s, it was great to see another international HQ winner down under in Australia for William Haggas, this time Protagonist. This goes along with Charlie Appleby, Saeed Bin Suroor and George Boughey’s Dubai and Bahrain winners internationally last week, all from HQ! It’s quite unbelievable the horses that are assembled in this small town where we are blessed to be able to live and train horses. Not only that, but the worlds best facilities. Just last week we were challenged with unforeseen snow/rain/sleet and the track managers again did a superb job, ensuring all tracks were serviceable and all horses walks were salted. Really unbelievable service and a fantastic place to have your horse trained.
Our horses all really stepped up another notch this past week and we had a lovely morning hosting lots of owners on Saturday and had a good few working at the Al Bahathri. They are all coming along nicely and we look forward to getting them all going in April. We had our retired chef cook everyone hot dogs back at the yard as well as scones and home baked banana loaf from Michelle Fernandez. A great morning out in the welcomed sunshine and fresh air. It’s rewarding to see our open yard policy giving our owners so much enjoyment with their horses as well as meeting and making new friends through racing.
A reminder: Dylan Cunha Racing Open Day 16 April 10am-2pm. Everyone welcome.
If you’re looking for a lot of fun and to meet new people and make racing friends, I highly recommend you get involved in our two syndicates Catch Us If You Can Racing and Quest Thoroughbreds. Both are really well run and have fantastic people involved.
Our sales team are hard at work looking at the Tattersalls Ascot Sale where Godolphin have a few exciting entries next Tuesday and a lot of work is being done on The Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale, The Goffs Doncaster Breeze Up Sale, The Tattersalls Ireland Breeze Up Sale and the Arqana Deauville Breeze Up Sale. We will be attending all of the above sales and have a really well worked out shortlist. Get in touch and get involved.
This coming weekend is the Hong Kong Derby and we will be shouting for California Spangle who is by Starspangledbanner. It’s always a top race and worth setting a reminder for on Sunday.
Here’s a little food for thought; Cape Racing back in SA (remembering they are operating in a country that’s struggling with infrastructure collapse among a lot more), have revived racing and betting turn over, they have increased field sizes, Cape Racing is now thriving against all odds… a simplistic view of it, is, basically all they did is cater for the smaller owners, trainers, punters which increased all the above, they realized the game needs a balance of everyone. They gave a great businessmen in Greg Bortz complete control and he made popular and unpopular decisions regardless of who wanted things in what way, and now is he more popular than anyone in racing. He’s Godlike in SA racing now. All it took is a strong leader who wanted the best for the game and he rallied everyone from the smallest to the biggest in the game to cater for them all and the results speak for themselves. I think British Racing is not far off needing its own Greg Bortz to sort out prize money and the rising costs to owners. I say this out if pure passion and love to keep British Racing where is belongs, on top and not fading away to Japan and Australia and the likes and becoming a nursery for the rest of the world.
Closing mumble for today; “As long as you feel pain, you’re still alive. As long as you make mistakes you’re still human, and as long as you keep trying, there’s still hope!”
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