WE were delighted to open the yard up on Tuesday as part of National Racehorse Week, organised by Great British Racing. This is a really good national initiative designed to allow people a behind-the-scenes look at what we do, the first-class care stable staff give the horses and to help promote the sport.
Our event was one of dozens happening all across the country through to Sunday so hopefully everyone who wants to get a glimpse of the day to day life in a yard is able to get along to somewhere before the week is out.
Our guests were able to tour the yard, visiting all our horses in their boxes before joining us on the gallop to watch them work. We are rightly proud of the facilities we’ve built here and like showing them off, so it was also a good chance to let them see our swimming pool being put to good use.
I think everyone enjoyed their day and it was great chatting and answering questions over coffee afterwards. Being around horses every day, we get to enjoy seeing them close up and witness how they each have their own personalities. It’s easy to forget that not everyone has that privilege, so hopefully our visitors had a really memorable morning and went away loving horses and racing a little bit more.
Hopefully we will bump into them all again on a racecourse somewhere in the months ahead.
*****
Tomorrow we head to Kelso for their opening meeting of the winter season with SOME REIGN (5.30). He's off top weight so faces a tough assignment because it looks a pretty hot race on paper. I have no doubt he will come on for the run after this because he's been off the track since April, but he's run well fresh before and has been doing plenty work at home, as you'll see from the video of him below in our indoor school. I'll be going to walk the track beforehand just to make sure the ground is suitable because he won't want it too quick, but if it's okay he'll take his chance.