Mark, George and Bella Hitchcroft
came to stay last Friday night. We had a very good dinner with James Repard,
his two children, Kim Meehan and Katya’s children – it was a very jolly
evening. I took Hitchy and George on the gallops on Saturday morning to see
Murray Mount (IRE) on the gallops first lot and I think he was fairly happy
with what he saw!
The annual Lambourn carnival took
place on the Sunday and sadly for all of those who put so much time and effort
into arranging it, it was a complete disaster as the turnout was poor. A very
sad individual had threatened to set up a massacre on the day and the police
had to take it seriously.
Somehow the Sun newspaper got
hold of this story and wrote an article on it.
As a result of this, a lot of people didn’t turn up as they were too
scared of the consequences. I think it was absolutely ridiculous as a lot of work
went into getting the floats up together and I really hope people will make a
big effort to support the carnival next year.
I rode out most of last week and
got soaked at least three times; I cannot wait for next summer as it cannot be
any worse than the one we just had, although they keep promising us an Indian
summer, so fingers crossed!
We are turning the tempo on a few
horses now, and some of them did their first bit of work yesterday. We are now
schooling the horses every Thursday and hope to our horses ready and raring to
go at the beginning of October… something to look forward to!
We had a very long lunch at
Philippa Kindersley’s on Saturday and got a lift back with Stan and Sarah
Moore, who told me about a nice horse that they have in their yard that I
should try. So I went down to ride a very nice 3yo of theirs on Monday, who was
3rd at Longchamp the other day and would make an absolutely ideal
juvenile hurdler. He is a big horse with lots of bone and he should do the job
nicely. All I need to do is find somebody to buy him!
On Sunday I drove down to
Ditcheat as I was invited to Paul Nicholl’s Open day. It is always nice to keep
an eye on the opposition. Paul showed off about 80 horses and having seen them,
I don’t think we have a lot to worry about this year!! He said he is going to
make an early start to this season, so we better get our skates on.
We had a runner at Worcester on
Tuesday – Airpur Desbois, who ran very well finishing 3rd in what
was a very competitive race, which was won by the well known Hunt Ball. He is a
very nice young horse and will win his races but is for sale as he probably
isn’t as good as his owner David Fox would like. Please call me if you would like any more information on
him. We were meant to have two runners at Uttoxeter yesterday, but I had to
withdraw Sureness as Noel got off Dragon City and said that the ground was
tacky and holding. It seems to me that over watering has been a problem this
summer and proper summer jumping ground has been difficult to find. Dragon City,
who was having his first run over hurdles for the new syndicate Earth Wind and
Fire was somewhat over exuberant having had over 600 days since his last run
and pulled far too hard. He jumped extremely well but didn’t get home. The combination
of the tacky ground and pulling too hard was the problem, but a shorter
trip/better ground should be the recipe for success and I am sure he will be
winning soon!
We schooled Victor Leudorum,
Murray Mount and Quebec this morning on Kath Walwyn’s schooling ground. James
Davies schooled Murray Mount and liked him a lot. Our conditional Tommy
schooled Quebec, who was the horse that impressed me most this morning, and our
young Amateur Shane schooled Victor, who as a seasoned campaigner, jumped as
well as ever. Second lot; Mr Big (ridden by Kara) led Some Kinda Lama and
Capatosta over the hurdles. They were both very impressive, but unfortunately we
couldn’t take a video of it as the visibility was poor, but we will endeavour
to do so next time. Third lot; Tommy schooled Aspasius and Shane schooled Le
Legro in the ring, and as you can see from the video, Le Legro electric!
Although he isn’t the biggest of horses, he showed plenty of scope and
enthusiasm and will definitely jump a fence. He is one of three horses in The
Neardowners syndicate and I am really looking forward to seeing his first run.
We welcome on board some lovely
new owners called Anthony and Wendy Smith, who have bought a share in The
Neardowners, and came to look at their horses yesterday. They are new to racing
as their interests have mainly been in Eventing and Hunting, and I am looking
forward to giving them their first winner under the rules of racing! There are
now only a few shares left in The Neardowners, so please call me or the office
if you would like some more information.
Please see video below (Le Legro & Aspasius schooling):
 |
| Aspasius & Tommy |
 |
| Le Legro & Shane |
Fourth lot; we schooled two
lovely new horses who we bought from Sylvester Kirk; Dukes Den and My Anchor
(see video below). Neither of them had schooled before, and I must say, I was
very pleased with how they both did. They both have lovely attitudes and are
going very well up the gallops. We have just set up a new three horse syndicate
called “The Sunrisers” with these two horses are in. Please email or call the office for
more details. We will put more information on the blog re this shortly.
The children are all back at
school and we now have a week without any racing, so I am looking forward to catching
up with our owners.
No comments:
Post a Comment