Hello and welcome to some news from Hazelrigg. I have to confess, I am slightly reluctant to embrace 21st Century communications such as Twitter (I’m sorry, it’s just not my thing!), but I think the time has come to start a regular ‘blog’ to keep people posted on our latest news about the yard and the horses.
It’s a good moment to start the diary, as we had a good day yesterday with Ros Castle winning for us up at Ayr. We had an enforced quiet spell for about 2 months from November till January, due to our horses just not being quite right. They weren’t actually noticably ill; they looked Ok and weren’t coughing. But when we started scoping them they had uniformally below average results. This is clearly a very frustrating thing to happen especially at the height of the jumps season, but as so often is the case with horses, we had to exercise our patience! Now it looks like the patience is paying off, we’re back in action now, and the horses are healthy and running well. Especially Ros Castle! It was fantastic for everyone to have a nice winner after our quiet time, but especially for my parents who own the horse. He’s a lovely chasing prospect for them, so we’re delighted that he’s won a 2 mile hurdle for them on the way. We won’t be rushing him back too quick, and might stick to 2 miles if the ground is still soft. He loved that ground yesterday.
Last week, another of my parents’ horses Pyjama Game was fancied to win at Newcastle with Lucy Alexander riding. However, unlike Ros Castle, he did not relish the sticky, soft ground there. He didn’t travel at all through the race, looking like he hated the ground. He did however stay on nicely up the straight, plugging on for 3rd. He’s a gorgeous little horse, and I hope we’ll be having plenty of fun and winners with him this Spring. Another horse who we’re looking forward to his next run is Harry Handsome. He finished 2nd the other day up at Ayr, and is dropping back to 2 miles at Sedgefield next week, where he ran quite a nice race in his 2nd Novice hurdle. Harry is another big strong chasing type, who has been schooling over fences in preparartion for his first chase, But we’d like to win a hurdle with him first.
One more horse to mention who is running next week is Purcell’s Bridge (Carlisle). Dobbs and I took him down to Sedgefield on Sunday hopeful of a big run. But of course we had to come straight home again due to the frost, and very frustrated at a wasted day and chance for Percy. He’s a lovely horse, bought for us last Summer by Gerry Hogan for James Filmer-Wilson. He’s got good bumper form and has schooled very well. So I’m looking forward to seeing him have his first outing over the sticks.
A bit of a delay since my last post, but there hasn’t been a lot going on, except for very un spring like weather. Lots of rain and quite a lot of racing abandoned, it’s such a pain for everyone, who have their spring horses ready then find the ground is suitable only for proper winter horses who like it heavy! It’s also not very nice for the poor horses who have already been turned out, who can look pretty cold and start getting a winter coat. But surely it’ll improve soon and the horses will get the sun on the back that they enjoy so much.
We’re off to Perth this evening with two runners, Why Are You Asking and Pyjama Game. WAYA is 5 lbs out the handicap, but he was dropped that after running on attrocious ground at Hexham that he didn’t handle, so I didn’t really think he deserved that drop. Normally one complains about horses not being dropped, but if you have one at the other end of the scale it can be a different story. Anyhow, he’ll enjoy going right handed at Perth, but it could possibly happen a bit quickly for him round there as it’s 2 and half, and his ideal is a real stiff 2 and a half like Hexham. Pyjama is in over 3 miles and might need the head lights on his blinkers as it’s not till 9 o’clock. He is very well after a good break, and a couple of aborted entries due to bad ground. But he has raced a bit lazily this season and I just hope he will show his true colours. If he disappoints at all, it’ll be holiday time, he may be one that has just taken a long time to get over the bug.
Dobbs and I have already had our holiday time, we’re just back from a week in America which was absolutely brilliant, followed by Emma Lavelle’s wedding to Barry Fenton, so it’s been busy in some ways!!
First of all, apologies for being very neglectful of my news page. It’s no good having a news page with no recent news on it, so I vow here to update readers much more regularly!
We were hoping to run Ros Castle today at Ayr, but unfortunately they didn’t get enough rain. I have entered him at Perth next week, so fingers crossed he’ll get a run up there, but if not he’ll have his summer holidays. We’re happy with what he has shown this year and we’re really looking forward to him going chasing next season. We also have Pyjama Game and Groovy Dancer as possibles for Perth. Pyjama ran slightly flat last time, so he got a bit of a break and has come back really fresh and well. I hope it has done the trick, as he’s better than what he has produced so far over hurdles. If he runs, it will give Nick Orpwood who works in the yard a nice spin, as it’s an amateur race. It will be Groovy Dancer’s first handicap (2 and half mile novice handicap on Friday). It will of course be competitive, as Perth always is, but she’s a lovely filly, and I hope she’ll go well off what’s a fair opening mark.
We’re getting to the time of year when we’re finishing a lot of the horses for the Summer. They’re getting their shoes off and can look forward to a nice long holiday in the enormous field we turn them out in at Hazelrigg. To be honest I am quite happy we’re getting towards the end of season, we have had such a disappointing one, after the horses got the bug and didn’t win nearly as many races as we were hoping for. I am at the stage where I want to put a line through this season, and get on with the next! We have plenty of nice horses to look forward to next year, including a lovely horse I just bought at Cheltenham sales called Markem. So basically it’s a feeling of onwards and upwards, lots of trainers go through lean spells, it’s the nature of the beast! We just have to try and make sure we make up for lost time and winners next year!
We’ve going in two directions tomorrow, with Pyjama Game (R McGrath) running at Kelso and Snooker (Wilson Renwick) going to Doncaster. Happily I’m doing the local track, Dobbs will have quite a long day going down to Donny. It is Snooker’s first run in a handicap (off 90). He has looked like he doesn’t really stay the trip over hurdles so far, so we’re just hoping that as he’s down into a handicap and on quicker ground, he might be able to stay this time. He was a pretty decent flat horse in Germany, but soon after he came over to us, he got a seriously bad colic and very nearly died. He had the whole of last season off to recover, so it remains to be seen what, if any, ability he retains. One positive is that since his last run we have been able to continue training him. After both his first and second hurdle runs he was very stiff after, and needed almost 2 weeks to recover, so I think he is fitter now than we’ve had him before.
Our other lad Pyjama Game should go well at Kelso. He’ll love the 2 mile 6, and the good ground. He hated the sticky ground at Newcastle the other day. We really like this little horse and think he should be quite competitive off his present mark. There are a couple of horses that look quite threatening, and we’ve got the Champ to contend with, who’s riding Sundown Trail. But I’ll have full faith in Richie McGrath who knows his way round Kelso better than A.P!
On our way back from Wetherby delighted with one horse and scratching our head about the other one. Harry Handsome ran very well under a lovely ride from Henry Brooke. He jumped and travelled really well in a generous 2 mile gallop and was beat half a length to finish 2nd. It’s obviously frustrating to finish so close yet so far, but I’m really pleased with the run. I think he will make into a nice chasing type for the Wights and John Cockburn, and a chase is what he’ll go for next. He has schooled well over the fences already.
Our next runner was Another Dimension. As mentioned in an earlier update, this horse has been disappointing this season, and again he faded very tamely. He doesn’t make any noise, but we’ll check his wind. It seems like there is a mental switch there at the moment, as if he is anticipating going through the pain barrier. When you ride him work at home, you could never imagine there’d be any problem whatsoever.
We have a quiet week now, with no runners till next Tuesday when we run Bella Venezia in a mares handicap at Catterick. I hope she’ll be more competitive in handicap company as she wasn’t good enough for novice races.
It’s been a frustrating week weather wise. Just as our horses are healthy and running well, Jack Frost arrives and racing is abandoned. We have missed a couple of nice opportunities, but everyone is in the same boat with the cold snap, so we just have to sit it out. We replaced our gallop last summer with a Martin Collins Activ Track surface. This has been brilliant during the severe frost, it simply rides really well all the time, whatever the weather. We are also lucky to have our covered ride, which allows us to carry on schooling whilst the ground outside is frozen solid. So the horses haven’t been held up at all in their work, but just having to wait to go to battle on the track.
Along with every other racing person in the north, I just hope the temperatures rise in time to let racing go ahead next week. We have Another Dimension in at Catterick on Monday (if it is off he will go to Wetherby the following week). We have had a frustrating time with this horse known as Archie. He won nicely for us in May at Kelso, his first run after we bought him at the Cheltenham April sale. In his 3 runs since September, he has faded tamely when the pressure has come in the last 2 or 3 furlongs. Very disappointing, and moreover very puzzling as he looked so tough when grinding it out up the Kelso straight. Nothing significant came to light after we scoped and blood tested him after the first 2 runs, but after his 3rd, we found on scoping he had a very inflamed airway, indicating he’d had an allergic reaction to something. So since then he has had a change in routine/moved stable and spends a lot of time out in the paddock. So we’ll be holding our breath hoping we see him back to from when he runs.
I have entered our Ayr winner Ros Castle at Kelso next Wednesday. We would have preferred the race to be a week later really, but he is in such good form and the race is ideal for him, so we felt we had to give him an entry. It would just be brilliant to get my Dad a winner at the local track, we’re also aiming his Pyjama Game for a race there on the 3rd March, so hopefully one of them will do the business.
After that it’s off to the slopes for me for a couple of days skiing with the rest of my family, which I’m really looking forward to. Luckily for me Dobbs hasn’t taken to the skis, so can mind the ranch while I’m gone. Instead he goes golfing in the summer, which I’m not at all jealous of!