Blog Seventy-six
Good Monday Morning
To start off this weeks blog; “Never regret a day in your life: good days give happiness, bad days give experience, the worst days give lessons and the best days give memories.
Sales season has just begun again, and our team are flat out studying catalogues and working hard behind the scenes to find you the value and a potential future star. These are exciting times for us and you want to get involved and join in the fun. In horse racing, you have to keep pushing and planning for the future and now is the time for that. We need your support. Get in touch. Don’t miss out.
We ran All About Alice at Lingfield on Tuesday in the Apprentice Handicap over 1m5f. The race was ran on the turf - good to firm
ground. She’s not got a good record on turf but we felt we had to find out for ourselves if she could be competitive on such a surface. She’d ran a half decent race at Leicester under Kyle on good ground looking as though a step up in distance would be ideal. We were happy to get Harry Burns to ride & hoped we could continue our good record together after Harry’s success with Gold Medal. The race itself was a virtual non event for Alice. Harry Davies showed maturity beyond his years in setting easy fractions up front & we never got into the race. It was a long drive home.
Wednesday dawned to a light mist which the sun soon burnt off - one of those days when you think how lucky we are to be alive - if you need reminding. We were working horses on the Al Bahathri & the day quickly turned into a nightmare. Military Micki had went well up the track showing his willingness to impress as usual but then shortly after whilst cooling down he suffered a fatal heart attack. Losing a horse knocks you sideways - you never get used to it. Normally the trainer has to make the worst call of all & inform the owner of the loss of his / her horse. As I was the owner that call didn’t have to be made but it leaves a dark cloud over the yard for many a day. It’s right when you hear an owner say “as long as he comes back safe that’s all that matters .” If a horse runs poorly for whatever reason I’ll get to the bottom of it & sort the problem out. In poor Micki’s case I was helpless to do anything. Tough Day.
Saturday was D Day for Silver - he worked on the Al Bahathri over 6F with Confederation. For Confederation it was his final piece of fast work before running at Bath on Wednesday. Robbo on Confederation led at a decent pace with Gavin as usual on Silver close behind. At the 4 marker Gavin asked Silver to join Gus which he did with the minimum of fuss. Silver went a neck up & maintained the advantage until the end of the gallop without being asked a serious question by Gav. The gallop went exactly as Gav, Robbo & I planned. I’m happy for Silver to take his chance at York on Friday provided the going is favourable i.e faster side of good. The race will obviously be deep as you’d expect for a £100k pot at York. If the ground is fast he’s got a great chance - it would be something special to have a winner at York’s Ebor Festival. The owners, Martians Racing, are flying over from The States to watch Silver & the other top class action on The Knavesmire.
Sunday Ace Rothstein went up the A1 to Pontefract and we were expecting a big run . Unfortunately Ace didn’t get into the race and never got competitive. Most top jockeys are their own biggest critics on the basis of ‘I haven’t won - what could I have done differently ?‘ Kyle jumped off and blamed himself but that’s been a bit harsh. Ace wasn’t winning today as it turned out. There’s a race for him at Goodwood on Saturday over 1m6f; I’ll see how he is when he’s home as entries are tomorrow. At the the moment the ground is on the easy side on the Sussex Downs but the English Summer looks like stretching into a second week which may scupper that plan. Ideally we’d like rain Down South & hot dry weather on The Knavesmire - the Weather Gods would be very much on our side for that to occur.
Battleofbaltimore will be making the trip to Catterick this morning. He’s improving all the time; if he’s to be competitive off his mark he certainly needs to. He’ll be one for next season but we need to run him to keep on top of him. P. J McDonald knows the course well and takes the ride.
Wednesday we’re hoping Confederation gets his head in front at last to give Andrew’s syndicate Catch Us If You Can another winner after Battle’s won on Monday. Like London Buses waiting and waiting for one then two turn up at once - that’ll do nicely thank you very much! At the 6 day stage it looks a tight handicap but Gus has as much chance as any and more than most. Given luck in running he’ll be right there at the death. Arc winning jockey Luke Morris is booked to ride.
Then it’s Silver time; We’ll be looking at entries for the Group 3 Strensall Stakes today, in the hope of the unlikely event that the race looks weak. I certainly feel in a years time such events will be within his compass but in all likelihood he’ll run on Friday, if you like a bet don’t let him start without having a ‘few bob ‘ on. I see him most nights in my dreams approaching the furlong maker and Greg having a double handful - wouldn’t that be something? That’s the best part of a week away as I write this though & that’s a long time in this game .
I had a fantastic time in Cardiff on Saturday with the Springboks thrashing Wales in a pre World Cup warm up test match. Cardiff is a great city and I look forward to a trip back down there again sometime.
Do get in touch with your sales budget and orders, we will have a serious shortlist at all the sales and need to support to keep growing the yard. We are still running at a high 18% win strike rate and want to keep upgrading the type of horses we buy with a bigger budget.
To close off todays blog; “Many dreams die while suffering, stay hard!”
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