We brought a lot of the horses back in last week so it’s great to see the yard full of life once more. It’s also nice to see the staff back too after their very long holiday! Cole has already left to go down to the racing school in Newmarket, so hopefully we’ll be welcoming back a budding little jockey when he returns.
We are also welcoming James Rowbottom who has just finished his GCSEs and is another budding jockey, having already had a ride on the flat. Jumping is definitely his future though as he’s already pretty tall, so we hope he doesn’t grow too much more!
Apart from our four summer jumpers, the horses have just been going on the walker twice a day so far, and this week we have started to get tack on them and James started getting on a few this morning. They all behaved I’m glad to say. We’ll get the rest of the horses in next week - the softer ground types. That will take us to about 40 horses in, a nice number, and leaving a few spare boxes for any new ones if they appear.
We endured a very frustrating moment on Monday. I was very excited to declare Ardglass Star for Stratford, our first runner of the new season. He was easily going to get in, which was a pleasant surprise at entry stage, as the entries for the first few jumps fixtures have been multitudinous. But to my horror they only allowed 9 to run in the hurdle races, due to stable capacity. I calculated we would have been no. 10 on the decs so I felt pretty aggrieved. Especially as the horse seems to be flying. There was we could do about it and just have to hope he stays in that form until he does eventually get a run, I think that will probably be at Uttoxeter in a fortnight.
Honourable Gent does get in to Market Rasen on Friday. It’s looking competitive but he has won first time out the last three seasons, so it would be lovely if he could do that again at the age of 12. He seems well, although with Chris still off, Dobbs has been having to ride him, and he’s horribly keen on his twice weekly visits to the gallop, so Dobbs hasn’t exactly been relishing that. He spends the rest of his time in the covered ride where Nancy Dobbin would be able to ride him!
Above is a picture of old Master Don - looking a bit tubby ahead of returning to work!
Here we have James and Amy with Vintage Glen and Hitman Fred.