A busy week!

We have had a busy week helping John and Luke Davies get The Malt Shovel up and running as, much to everyone’s delight, they have taken a lease on the pub for a year, with an option to buying it. The Malt Shovel closed last November and the one thing that has come out of it in that time, is how much we have missed it and how much we need it back! I am sure it will do really well and everyone in the area is very excited about it. The pub now looks fantastic and they are hoping to open it on the 1^st October. Katya has been busy helping with the interior design of the pub and it is really coming together now.

We had lots of Red Letter Day guests here on Saturday – we worked a load of horses up the back of the hill and it is getting quite exciting now as we are letting them stride on a bit more. Baltic Storm looked especially good – he is a young horse who we bought from Germany earlier this year. Katya cooked a delicious breakfast for our guests and then rode out for the first time in 3 weeks following quite a nasty fall; she seemed to enjoy herself and has been riding out in the rain this morning!

We had a long lunch at The Hare on Saturday with Philip and Jo Hunt. We watched the Ledger from there and I thought Ralph Beckett's horse was unlucky to lose it, but I am not sure that they will get it back on the appeal. Ballydoyle had a fairly good weekend, having won both Ledger’s (English and Irish), but the horse that stood out over the weekend was Treve as she absolutely hacked up at Longchamp and it will take a very good horse to beat her in The Arc!

I took Mr Big on a local fun ride on Sunday with Mark Grant, Dominic and Ben Ffrench Davis, but it wasn’t as much fun as I had anticipated as Mr Big spent most of his time on his hind legs. I was going to hunt him this year, but I am not sure he will be as much fun as I had thought!!

My sister Caroline and brother in law Mark stayed on Sunday evening as they were on their way home from a wedding in Cornwall. They watched their horses on the gallops this morning. They are in The Neardowners syndicate, so watched Le Legro, Maid of Milan and Capatosta with great interest. They didn’t pick the best morning weather wise as it was pretty misty and ever so wet! Whoever said that we are going to have an Indian summer needs their head testing as it has rained all morning!!

Excitingly, we have just bought a very nice horse in Germany from Markus Klug called Ephraim. He is a gorgeous big 4yo, who has won a Group 3 race on the flat. He passed the vet on Saturday and I am hoping he will be coming over on Wednesday. He is a very high class horse and we are hoping he might make up into a Cheltenham contender!

Jumping galore!!!

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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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. 

Charlie Mann Racing Club

Today we have added two new horses to our Charlie Mann Racing Club.

If anyone would like to join the club, please download the application form on the "CMRC tab" or email info@charliemann.info for more information.

There should be lots of fun to be had and all members get a free Charlie Mann Racing baseball cap!

AGNES B

5yo grey mare

Great Palm (USA) – Say Sadie (Say Primula)

Agnes B is a lovely, big and athletic sort who was bred by the Dawson family in Yorkshire, who have already supplied us with winning horses; Bridal Suite (IRE) and To Begin. She is currently unraced but has already schooled over poles and will run in a bumper before the end of the year, before going hurdling. She has the scope to make a chaser in time.

 

Agnes B

CHIEF BOTTLEWASHER (IRE)

4yo bay gelding

Moss Vale (IRE) – Edwina (IRE) (Caerleon (USA)

Chief Bottlewasher (IRE) has been placed in an Irish Bumper on soft ground. The winner of the race, Sir Will, was bought by Peter Bowen and has subsequently gone on to be 2^nd in two competitive bumpers. The horse that came second, Cape City Boy, also won next time at Down Royal.

Chief Bottlewasher (IRE) is a lovely strong horse who will go hurdling this season and will make a chaser in time.

Chief Bottlewasher (IRE)

Schooling youngsters & a lovely lunch!

All the babies have now schooled in our sand ring and have now progressed to schooling on the grass over the hurdles. This morning Gavin Sheehan came in and schooled Dragon City over the big hurdles – he is an absolute natural and really enjoys his schooling. He has an entry for Uttoxeter next Wednesday in a Maiden Hurdle race for the new Earth Wind and Fire syndicate. He was a winner on the flat for Harry Dunlop and has plenty of size about him and as you can see from the video of him schooling below, he is a chaser in the making! There is one share left in this syndicate, which is £3600 (inc VAT) plus training fees for a 1/5 share and we think he is very good value at that and well worth the investment. Please call Charlie on 07721888333 or Katya on 07799880078 if you are interested.

Video – Mr Big leading Dragon City and Murray Mount over the hurdles.

Murray Mount is owned by a very good owner of ours called Hitchy and as you can see from the video, he really enjoyed schooling upsides Dragon City and we look forward to him having a run soon.

Gavin then schooled Baltic Storm (IRE) with Aspasius (GER) and Capatosta (USA). Below is a photograph of them being presented to the hurdles. All three of them are natural jumpers and are exciting prospects. Capatosta (the chestnut) is one of the horses in The Neardowners syndicate, which still has shares available.

On another note, we had a wonderful lunch on Sunday for the Cody Wyoming syndicate (Charlie Mann Racing Club I). Even the dismal weather couldn’t put a dampener on the day, which was a great success. Cody was on great form as always and I think all his owners thoroughly enjoyed seeing him and are looking forward to lots of fun (and hopefully lots of success) with him this season. Katya organised the day beautifully and a great day was had by all.

I am off to Doncaster Horses in Training sales today, and will endeavour to rush back for drinks at Oaksey House this evening by invitation from the Jockey Club who are arranging a drinks party to celebrate the many successes and all the great horses trained on the Lambourn gallops of late. I will let you know how it goes in my next blog.

Airpur Desbois (FR) has an entry at Worcester on Tuesday 8^th – he is very fresh and well and having come third last time out, we are hoping that he will improve on that and run well again.

Katya and I went to Germany last week for two days and looked at some lovely horses - we will let you know what comes of this shortly, but in the meantime, here is a picture of me riding work in Cologne…. I haven’t lost it yet!!!

20th August 2015

On Tuesday 11^th we took Barney Windsor Clive and Evelyn Faber to watch Cody Wyoming cantering up the gallops, who was in tremendous form and looks a picture right now.

We picked up a nice Proclamation filly from Sue Welch last week and have sent her to Mark Grant, who has a breaking yard locally, to get broken in before she is sent on to us. She is a lovely looking strong filly.

I have been riding out two lots most days lately and getting on as many different horses as possible; I really think we have got a quality bunch this year and I am enjoying getting to know the youngsters.

Jill Mayo and Bryan Beacham came over last Wednesday. They came to see some of the new horses as well as their own Gowanauthat.  We are very pleased that Jill has decided to come into The Neardowners; the shares are selling fast, which is really great.

We sent Lord of House for a new life as a show horse/hunter, under the care of Lucy Ralph, who has had another ex-racehorse of ours, as unfortunately his wind operations have not been very successful. It is a big blow for both us and the owners as he was a decent horse and won some good races, but at the end of the day, if the horse cannot run to its maximum ability, there is no point in carrying on, which is a great shame. He will be sorely missed, but we hope he has a very good life in a different role. Lucy has been keeping in touch and reports that he is settling in well. She is taking him to Newmarket this week as she is working at the BRS for the next 6 weeks – I think he is getting pampered!

We have done lots of schooling lately, which as I said in my last blog, I find very exciting. We schooled Dragon City last week; he was a revelation! Airpur Desbois was also very good over hurdles – Tommy was very pleased with him.

I had a nice surprise second lot as Peter Toole turned up on the yard – he was staying with his friend Jack Pilkington for a few days and called in on us which was great. I drove him up to the gallops and talked about old times and new ventures. I am delighted that Peter is in such good form and in very good terms with himself. I am looking forward to having a days hunting with him in Ireland in the winter!

It absolutely poured it down last Thursday. We took Sureness to Fontwell, but had to take her out, as the ground got very soft. Sam Twiston Davies was due to ride her and said the ground was very variable as well.

John and Veronica Thorneloe came to see their horses and also bought a share in The Neardowners, which is fantastic.

I got absolutely soaked on Friday riding out two lots. We schooled Sureness over fences in preparation for her race at Southwell on Sunday 16^th. She flew over the fences and was in great form, so we had high hopes for her run.

I took Katya down to Southampton last Friday, and got a ferry over to Cowes. We stayed with some friends called Martin and Laura Levi at their lovely house called “The Prospect”. It was the big fireworks night that evening, which marks the end of Cowes week. It was great fun and we saw lots of people that we knew.

On Saturday we ran To Begin at Market Rasen but unfortunately he bled again, so we are getting his wind done as we speak and hoping that will help him.

We had a very good lunch on the top floor of a double decker bus overlooking the harbour at Cowes on the Saturday – we had lobster and chips, washed down with a bottle of Champagne and it really was quite something! Charlotte, Patrick and a friend went to Newbury’s Ladies Day and said they saw some interesting (!) outfits!

We drove home from Cowes, and had a very good lunch party on Sunday with lots of people from the village, cooked beautifully by Katya. She had marinated some steaks, which were ever so tasty.

Sureness ran at Southwell in a race that was made for her, but unfortunately the best jumper in the field fell at the second fence and in avoiding him, she managed to get rid of her jockey Gavin Sheean. She jumped every fence lose and quickened up well in the straight to win by a good margin, although unfortunately without a jockey. I think she would have won if that hadn’t have happened, so as you can imagine, it was pretty frustrating!

A young lad from Ireland named Shane Harte started working here on Monday. He has ridden in point to points in Ireland and rides quite nicely. He is hoping to get his Amateur’s licence and seems to be fitting into the team well.

Andy Durham and Darrell Muffitt came for lunch on Monday – Darrell bought the last share in Cody Wyoming; it is great to get him on board, and nice that the partnership (Charlie Mann Racing Club I) is complete!

The final three horses; Dukes Den, My Anchor and Chief Bottlewasher; came in from their holidays at Colin Tinkler’s and they are being ridden as of now. They are currently just doing roadwork, but I am looking forward to seeing them canter. All three are FOR SALE.

We were woken by the dogs at 5am on Tuesday morning and discovered two ponies on the lawn! Luckily they hadn’t done too much damage, and had chosen to eat the grass rather than any of Katya’s plants!

John Davies and his son Luke came down for lunch on Tuesday and I showed them their horses.

On Wednesday, we had Bill Brindle in for breakfast. He watched the four horses he has shares in on the gallops second lot and Patrick managed to get out of bed to film them in their slower paces. Bill is very excited about the oncoming season as all of his horses are looking extremely well right now. The Steeplechasers look as if they have three nice young horses, so there is lots to look forward to!

Katya and I took Patrick, Matilda and William to Barbury Castle Shooting School to shoot clays yesterday, which I must say was quite good fun. I think the children might go again for a days lesson.

http://www.barburyshootingschool.com/

Following on from Barbury, we headed to Worcester races to watch Airpur Desbois finish third in his first Novice Hurdle; it rained most of the evening but was quite warm. He ran a nice race and should win something. We had a delicious dinner with his owner David Fox afterwards. James was playing at Worcester after racing, so there was a big crowd which is always nice to see. It had also been Ladies Day, so again, there were lots of interesting/bizarre outfits on display! Tommy and Matty won best turned out with Airpur Desbois – he looked an absolute picture in the paddock!

This morning we schooled Dragon City over hurdles with Mr Big as a lead horse; he jumped beautifully. We also took Sureness up to the schooling ground to see how fresh she was after her “race” and she was crazy, so is in very good form! She has an entry at Worcester on Sunday but I think the ground will be too soft for her – we will wait and see. We then schooled Baltic Storm and Aspasius over their first ever poles in the ring; they both looked like naturals and I was very pleased with them.

Kyril, one of our lads took this nice photo of some of the horses looking over their stable doors, it's so nice to see them looking so happy and well:

Summer 2015

Please forgive me for my lack of blog; I will endeavour to keep it up to date from now on.

We have had a very busy summer so far, which has taken our minds off the fact that the weather hasn’t been the warmest on record. In fact we even had a frost on the 30^th July!

We have bought some lovely new horses who have been in for about 5 weeks now. The majority of them are cantering and I have managed to sit on all the new horses and I must say they are a really impressive lot. We still have shares available in a couple of syndicates (which I will fill you in on later) but they are selling fairly quickly.

We have a lovely new secretary called Tessa Champion, who started just in time to help Katya and the lovely Chrissie to organise all the golfers at our Charlie Mann charity golf day in June. It was the first time in fifteen years that we had more players turn up than we actually needed. It was a fantastic day, the golf was won by Sylvester Kirk, Mark Grant, Dominic Ffrench Davies and Jason. Mark  Grant was definitely the secret weapon! We raised over £5000 for the Injured Jockeys Fund and I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves and now Katya has organised it once, we are hoping to make it an even bigger success next year, so get your teams in early!!

Myself, Katya and Tess have been very busy over the summer working hard to get new owners in and we have got a bigger team of horses this year than last. We did have one wonderful week away in turkey though to escape from all the work! Katya, myself, Matilda, William, Charlotte and Patrick all went away on a gullet (which is a Turkish sailing boat) and sailed around the West coast of Turkey, stopping off at two different bays every day. It was a great success as we ate very good food, spent our days reading and swimming in the sea and the children didn’t see a television for a whole week!

We had a very good steeplechasers lunch on the 5^th July. This syndicate is now full and all the members seem very pleased with the horses that we purchased for it. From there we went onto the July meeting at Newmarket and bought a couple of really nice horses at the sales. One of them is the biggest 3 year old that I have ever seen called Capatosta (USA). I then drove up to Northumberland where my brother Robbie married his lovely new wife Emma on Holy Island. It was a really wonderful weekend where I managed to catch up with lots of relatives and old friends.

On the 16^th July, Andy Weller and Andy Durham came for lunch. Katya cooked a delicious lunch and Andy Weller actually didn’t leave until the next morning after finishing the evening with a late night Indian!

It hasn’t all been wining and dining though – we have managed to fit in some tennis, which is a sport that I really enjoy. I partnered an owner and friend of mine, Barney Windsor Clive, in mens doubles match against J Francome and J Rowlinson, and whilst we flew into the lead winning the first set 6-1, they then beat us in the next two sets 6-4, 6-4. Perhaps we could have more success in the mixed doubles as this might affect Franc’s concentration a little bit!!

We have had a very quiet summer runners wise as we do not have many summer jumpers, which has been a little frustrating. Having managed to do all five days of Royal Ascot, I thought I would never want to go racing again, but actually I am longing to get back into the nitty gritty of going racing on a regular basis! We have got Sureness entered next week at Fontwell and Southwell, and To Begin has some entries at Market Rasen next Saturday, so things are starting to pick up.

We have been schooling some of the younger horses recently – Dragon City and Airpur Desbois – in the sand ring and they both jumped beautifully. Schooling young horses for the first time never fails to excite me and these two really were very pleasing.

We also took Katya’s horse Agnes B up to Meridian Stud so that Elizabeth could have a lesson on her with Ruth Honey. She was very impressed with the way she went and thinks she is a very natural jumper. I have to say that if she doesn’t make it as a race horse (which we very much hope she will) she will definitely have another job as an eventer! We hope to run her in a bumper first but it is good for a young horses balance to school them over poles. Katya says it is the best birthday present she has ever had!

We also went to a big lunch at Newbury on the 18^th of July for John Hills memorial. There was a very big turnout, which is testament to what a popular person he was. He was a great friend of mine and is very sorely missed.

We went to Simon Christian’s 60^th birthday party at Oaksey House last Sunday and saw lots of people that we haven’t seen for a while. Again it was a very good turnout and I am sure Simon was thrilled to see so many friends. Well done to everyone who organised it!

I also went to the New Forest show with Sue Welch last week and was very surprised as the was  much bigger than I had anticipated. It was lovely to catch up with Sue and I look forward to having her Proclamation filly join our yard tomorrow.

As I mentioned previously, we have lots of lovely new owners, but most notably, we have just got our youngest owner on board. He is called George Fitzgerald O’Connor – he is only 6 years old and he has come into the Charlie Mann Racing Club. If George is the youngest member of our owner entourage, then I must also mention Tom and Liz Slater who most definitely travelled the furthest to visit us. They popped over from New York to go to a wedding in Hertfordshire on the Saturday and then spent the Monday morning with Tess, looking around the yard whilst we were away in Turkey.

Since the horses have come back into the yard from their summer holidays, they have most definitely had the “once over”. Not only has Matty, our Head Lad, done a great job in the hairdressing department, they have also had their teeth done and also we welcome on board a new Chiropractor called Stuart who came to the yard yesterday to treat a few of the horses. They all seem very happy with what he did and he even put his healing hands to our cat Oscar, who having been hit by a car and having his tail amputated thoroughly enjoyed having some TLC!

I am sorry for anything that I might have forgotten but there seems to have been so much going on this summer, but I am now back in my work routine and will be providing you with a regular blog from now on.

As I mentioned earlier, we do still have shares available in syndicate horses and also horses for sale as a whole – please look at our website for more details and contact me to discuss things further!

May Blog

I am sorry that I haven’t done a blog recently but I am sure you will see that I have been very busy once I have given you a brief resume of what has happened in the last 3 weeks!

We went to DJs wedding on May 2nd. He was my assistant trainer for 2 seasons and he married a lovely girl called Harriet.

I went to the Tatts Golf Day on the Tuesday at Woburn Abbey and played with my owner Mark Hitchcroft. Hitchy played very well and I played to my usual standard!

We have turned a lot of our horses out early this year and many went out in the first few weeks of May so we will be getting them back in at the beginning of July.

We went to a big Election Day dinner at Barney Windsor-Clive’s and celebrated late into the early hours … what a great result for the Conservatives!

James Campbell-Grey and his wife Gabbs came to stay that weekend and we had a very jolly time. I think they probably went back to London for a rest!

We ran Verano in his first Novice Chase that week. He jumped absolutely beautifully to finish 3^rd. He needs softer ground and is a very exciting prospect for this season. He has now gone on his holidays.

We went to Royal Windsor Horse show and had a very nice lunch with Sue Welch. We watched some very competitive show jumping and caught up with lots of old friends. Hitchy and his lovely daughter Bella came to stay the next day and she had great fun washing the children’s ponies that have just come home for the Summer and having covered the lads with water she then had a ride on both the ponies.

It was then off up to Hull to stay with Andy Stone for Brigitte’s 50th Birthday party. I was a very lively affair and was thoroughly enjoyed by us all. We had a very good breakfast the next day and then set off to Doncaster Sales.

The first day of Doncaster was tough as many of the horses didn’t turn up but we did manage to buy a lovely horse called Morney Wing from Sandra Hughes in Ireland. He is a big scopey 6yr old who has won a novice chase and will hopefully  win more over here. On the Tuesday we sold Always Smiling and then bought a very nice horse called Quebec. He is a 4yr old and is a winner on the flat and a winner of 2 of his 4 runs over hurdles. He will either go handicap hurdling or novice chasing. I looked at the stores on the Wednesday but didn’t manage to buy any. I watched the first race at Warwick from Doncaster as we had To Begin running in it. He managed to beat a 10 to 1 on shot and won at 10 – 1 against! I have never seen 20 points between the 1^st and 2^nd favourites and I can’t remember beating a 10–1 on shot before. He is a very nice horse and should win again.

On the Thursday we went to the Chelsea flower Show to see Katya’s friend Travers and Katie Nettleton who had a wonderful stand there called Garden  Art. We had a lovely day as I always find the flower show fascinating and we bought lots of plants. The beautiful weather did mean that it was a little over crowded though! We then went on to  Northamptonshire to have dinner with Judy and John Hilton who had collected Patrick from school along with their son Oscar. Having had a delicious dinner followed by bridge, table tennis and snooker we finally  got back to Neardown at 1.30 in the morning.

We have had two very nice horses arrive from Germany:

Aspasius - a 3yr old who has been placed in a listed race.

Baltic Storm - a 4yr old who ran in the German Derby last year.

They are 2 very nice horses and hopefully will be winning this season.

We had a big day on Sunday for the launch of the STEEPLECHASERS syndicate which has kindly been set up by Bill Brindle and Andy Stone. We were 28 for lunch in total and it was a great day with 2 0f the 3 horses paraded (Some Kinda Lama is on his holidays) and I think all 12 members are very pleased with our purchases:

Some Kinda Lama

Morney Wing

Quebec

We ran Sands Cove at Uttoxeter and he finished 4^th. We feel that he will benefit from a change of scenery so will be going to the sales next week.

We are busy steam cleaning, disinfecting and painting the yard in preparation for the return of our horses in July.