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.

30th April 2015 - Blog

We worked horses up the back of the hill on Wednesday and To Begin went nicely. I saw an old friend of mine, Simon Christian, having a coffee in The Lambourn Café and ended up asking him for lunch. Katya has been busy in the office so it has been up to me to cook lunch and Simon was very impressed with my culinary skills! After lunch Foxy drove me to Ffos Las where we had two runners. Royal Redemption ran a lovely race over hurdles finishing 2nd when needing the run. It will be his last hurdle race as he will be a lovely chaser for next season and is now going on his Summer break. Our second runner Gowanauthat ran disappointingly but we subsequently had his blood tested which showed he isn’t quite right. I think a lot of the horse so will send him off for his holidays as he needs time recover and look forward to bringing him back for next season. The drive back from Ffos Las took a long time … it is a very long way away!

We schooled Verano and Sureness over  fences for the first time on Thursday with Gavin Sheehan on board (see videos below) and they both jumped very well and I look forward to sending them chasing. That evening we went to Bobby and Ali McEwen’s for dinner.  It was a very jolly evening and it was lovely to see Rodney Powell and Alex.

On Friday we went to the Cheltenham Sales with an owner Terry Simmons who had never been to the sales before. We saw some lovely horses and having been under bidder on quite a few we eventually managed to buy a really nice 4yr old by Daylami called SOME KINDA LAMA (IRE). He was beaten a neck in his only Point to Point and the winner went through the sales an hour earlier (TANARPINO) and was sold for £80000. We paid £30000 for ours so I think we got a bargain. See photograph of SOME KINDA LAMA below.

He is the first horse bought for the STEEPLECHASERS PARTNERSHIP and we still have 2 more to buy for them. There is still one share in STEEPLECHASERS available so do give me a call to discuss if you are interested.

Tony and Rita Stapleton came for Supper at Neardown that evening. We hadn’t seen them for a while as they had been away and as always it was lovely to catch up with them. We had 3 Red Letter Days for breakfast on the Saturday morning and I think they all enjoyed themselves.  We then drove to Michael and Judy Maynard’s for lunch before going to Sandown for AP’s last day as a jockey. I took a photograph of him weighing in for the last time … it was a very sad day. 

We had a lovely lunch with the Maynard’s before going off to the races. The atmosphere at Sandown was very emotional  and I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in tears at the  races before  but it really was the end of an era as we will never see the likes of AP again not only in racing but in any sport. We have all taken the great man slightly for granted as he has been around for a very long time but we are going to be an awful lot worse off without him as he was a great ambassador for our sport.

We went to dinner at James Regard’s in Eastbury that evening. There were lots of interesting people and the food was delicious.

On Sunday morning Bill Brindle (who is running the STEEPLECHASERS PARTNERSHIP with Andy Stone) and his wife Hilly came to see the new horse SOME KINDA LAMA and gave their seal of approval.

Katya and I rode to Ashdown to meet my daughter Tildie and her friend Ella where we all went on a great fun ride to celebrate Tidies’ 15^th Birthday. On the way home we stopped off for an impromptu drink on horseback at Kim Meehan’s  (see photos below)  and then having put our horses away we then returned to Tumbleweed for a delicious lunch.

We then got Iffy to drive us to Heathrow Airport and as per usual the M4 was blocked! We had to take a diversion and iffy had to drive like Lewis Hamilton and we arrived at the airport with only 20 minutes to spare. Katya and I ran through Terminal 2 like Usain Bolt and only just managed to get on the flight. I was sweating like a pig unlike Katya who took it all in her stride!

My man Rheinhardt picked us up from the Airport and we went to my favourite fish restaurant which Katya enjoyed enormously. On the Monday morning we got up at 4.30 and Rheinhardt picked us up from our hotel and drove us to Cologne racecourse where we looked at horses in Peter Schiergen (who we bought SEVENTH SKY from) yard followed by 3 other yards in the same area. We saw 17 horses in total and I liked 2 of them – one of which I rode in the pouring rain. 

We have subsequently done a deal on one (subject to vetting) and are in negotiations for the other one. We flew back to England on the Monday evening.

We had Ian Piper in all morning on Tuesday updating our website. He took some incredible photographs which you can see below. I think the one of Sureness’s mane is a work of art.

Iffy tried to drive me to London that evening as I was meant to be having dinner with Nick Bannister but once again the M4 was a disaster. It took me 4 hours to get to junction 12 and in the end we turned around and came home. Katya had stayed at home to do some office work with our new secretary Tessa who will be joining us in July so I stopped off at the local Indian restaurant and surprised them with a curry.

We had Steve Cole and his girlfriend for breakfast and 2^nd lot on Wednesday. They have just joined the newly formed CMRC which now offers an all-inclusive price of £2000 plus VAT to have a sixteenth share of Cody Wyoming for the season(  there are 2 shares still available so please do call the office if you are interested )and they wanted to see him before he went away for the  summer.  We than had a telephone man in who is now going to put in a very high tech telephone system for us and then we loaded up Superb Story and Nimbus Gale who were going off to Colin Tinkler for their summer  holidays. We also collected Airpur Despois (see below) from Colin’s who has had a short break and is now coming back into training. 

Charlotte and William stayed on Wednesday night and at super we played some very competitive general knowledge games.

We are busy trying to buy horses for the new season and am off to the sales at Newmarket on Friday. We are also going to have our first runners of the season this Friday evening at Fontwell . We are running a nice new horse called TO BEGIN for the first time in a maiden hurdle race and Miller of Glanmire will run in a chase.

We had a very good schooling session this morning.  Sureness and Verano were very good (once again) over fences with James Davies on board this time and we hope to run them both over fences in the very near future.

SEVENTH SKY OFF ON HIS HOLS … WHAT A STAR!

SEVENTH SKY OFF ON HIS HOLS … WHAT A STAR!

On Tuesday there was a drinks party for Rodney Masters at Oaksey House as he is retiring from being the Lambourn Correspondent for the Racing Post. Rodney has been in Lambourn for 27years and was a great ally for the jockeys and trainers in the area – I think he will be a hard act to follow. There was a very good turnout which is testament to how very popular he is within our community.

We had 6 people for breakfast on Wednesday and as usual Katya cooked a delicious breakfast and they all seemed to have a jolly time. Later on I had a salesman attempt to sell me solar panels but he failed to convince me. Having got rid of him I went outside and took delivery of the most beautiful weather vane which is my birthday present from Katya. It will be less expensive to keep than the birthday present I gave to her!!

Harry Bannister came into school Thursday morning and we then left to go to Cheltenham to watch Sureness run in the Listed Mares Race at Cheltenham. We had a fun lunch with Paul Mott, his girlfriend Jacquie and some really fun friends of theirs. They were really pleased to see Sureness looking a picture in the paddock and were hopeful of a big run. She travelled and jumped really well in the race but unfortunately they had over watered the course for her liking so she got stuck in the gluey ground when she went to quicken. We will take her chasing this summer as she is a big mare who wants fast ground.

On Friday I took Evelyn Faber racing to Fontwell where we Had three runners. Murray Mount ran in his first hurdle race. He was very green and was a little precise with his jumping. He will come on a lot for the run mentally. We also ran Verano who made the running. Unfortunately he looked at everything and although he finished 3^rd he probably should have won. I have ridden him out since the race and judging by how fresh he is I suspect the race didn’t take much out of him!! Always Smiling ran in the last race at Fontwell. Her jumping let her down and is off to the sales as she is owner ridden and Harry is looking for something slightly better. Katya organised a very jolly supper party that evening with Ba Gilmour, Nick Gaselee and Anda and Tim Fitzgerald- O’Connor. We were very impressed with Tim’s stamina as he had only arrived back from Bermuda that morning!

We had another busy morning on Saturday with some very nice Red Letter Days folks. I ran Seventh Sky at Ayr in The Future Champion Novice Chase Group 2 in the afternoon and although he ran a little bit flat he still ran very well in defeat picking up £11000 in prize money for second place. This was his 16^th run of the season and in my 23yrs as a trainer I have never had a horse run as often as that. In 16 runs he has only been out of the prize money twice and has won 5 races. He is a credit to his owner John Heron. We are off to Germany this Sunday to try and find another one like him and he is now going away for a well-deserved break.

Iffy drove us to London that night for Natasha Kempner’s 21^st Birthday party at the Belvadere in Holland Park. The fact that we didn’t get home until 3 in the morning is testimony to what a good party it was.

We had a quiet day on Sunday … Riddles dropped in for a drink with Sean Shelley who was looking really well having had an operation recently. Katya and her daughter Charlotte then cooked a delicious lunch.

I rode out 2 lots on Monday and then went to Ascot Sales where I sold Attimo. He had been breaking blood vessels and I thought it was time to move him on.

I played my first game of tennis this season  and was very pleased with my performance but am open to improvement!!

We ran Bridal Suite in cheek pieces for the first time today at Exeter but unfortunately they worked a bit too well and he had run his race by the second last.

We plan to run 2 tomorrow at Ffos Las if the ground is okay but you have to be terribly careful at this time of the year as the ground is getting quick – there were 3 races at Exeter today with only 2 runners in them because of the ground.

We are going to Cheltenham on Friday to buy horses and will keep you informed.