22nd October Update

Unfortunately the rain scuppered the racehorse owners of seeing Surrey Quest’s first run under Toby’s guidance at Stratford yesterday. He’s been working really well but as we have said before, it won’t be until we see him back on the race track that we know for sure that the treatment he has received for his shoulder issues has worked. We did consider running at Plumpton tomorrow but there’s going to be plenty of other options against less rated horses on tracks that would suit more coming up later in the month (see below).   

We’ve just returned from 3 days in Deauville at the sales with Tim Donworth, Anthony Stroud and Matt Coleman, where we worked together to select horses that were well-bred and who we thought would be ideal for Chantilly. With only 7 syndicate owners expressing an interest we had to be disciplined in not breaking our budget, which we set at E60 000 (bearing in mind there would be another £10k of costs to add on to that plus training fees). 

Unfortunately in the 700+ lots at the auction there weren’t too many that we thought were suitable. Unusually for Arqana, there was a lack of quality on offer and so all the buyers were after the same horses. As a result, we were outbid every time and came back empty handed. There are another 180 lots for sale in Arqana’s November yearling sale and so we can look again then or wait until the Breeze up sales next Spring. However, the main problem is that we only have a handful of confirmed syndicate owners and unless we get more interest or increase the budget and ask people to pay more we are going to face the same problem. At the end of the day we are not prepared to compromise on the quality of the horses and certainly won’t just buy a horse for the sake of filling an order.  

Potentially racing this week is Surrey Noir who has an entry at Doncaster on Friday, a 6f class 4 handicap (0-85). Charlie wouldn’t want really testing conditions but right now the course is waterlogged so we’ll have to wait and see as the week progresses. Plus there are over 30 entries and Noir is way down the pecking order in the ballot so we’d need a few of them to decide not to run, the final turf races of the season really do fill up. 

Surrey Fortune was scoped this week in preparation for his debut soon and that came back perfect. He’s been working a mile each way around the sand gallop followed by stiff canters up the hill, so working both aerobically and anaerobically. He will have a day at Towcester racecourse this week to get used to the racetrack. He’s still very green so he’ll need a few away days but he’s getting better every time and a November debut beckons. 

Another November debut could be for Surrey Force as he has returned to the Newmarket gallops. His legs are sound and he’s making progress to what we hope will be a mid November run over a mile at Kempton with the 15th as the possible date. As we know, that date could quite easily slip!   

There isn’t much to add on the three recuperating horses, although we have spoken to the horse owners about having Surrey Shadow gelded. Colts do get big and fat when they don’t work and it takes longer to get them back to fitness. His breeding isn’t quite of a stallion level so it makes sense to have that done whilst he is in downtime.  

The three horses with Hughie are fine. Surrey Charm came out her race so well that Hughie is considering one more outing this season especially as we now know she handles the softer ground. Horses typically lose 10kg when they race, Surrey Fire’s race took so much out of him that he lost 20kg so he’ll need to recuperate for a bit before a decision is made whether he runs again this year. Surrey Belle should have one more outing although turf options are very limited as we get towards the season conclusion. 

Good Luck to those going to Doncaster if Noir takes his place there 

Possible races and events

2023 
October
Friday 27th – Surrey Noir – Doncaster
Monday 30th – Surrey Quest - Huntingdon
Tuesday 31st – Surrey Quest - Bangor

November
Wednesday 1st – Surrey Quest – Worcester
Thursday 2nd – Surrey Quest - Lingfield
Saturday 4th – Surrey Noir – Newmarket
Monday 6th – Surrey Quest – Hereford
Wednesday 15th – Surrey Force - Kempton