Weekly Update - 18th April
No runners this past week with the ground coming up too firm at Cheltenham for Gran Luna. Nicky felt that as we still don’t know for sure the reason for her bleeding after Market Rasen he would rather get her fully fit, have softer ground and try to win a slightly easier race. The race that he feels is ideal is the extended 2m 3f Mares Novice at Chepstow on Friday 23rd April which is an evening meeting and the race is currently scheduled for 5.35pm. However we still have concerns over the ground and it’s likely that Nicky will want to wait for rain. We have some dates now in the diary for small groups to visit Seven Barrows, which the racehorse syndicate owners have snapped up – it’s great to be getting back to some sort of normality. It’s a good chance to see Surrey Quest as well, another who is another waiting for a bit of rain to do some decent grass work before making his debut. James Bowen rode him this week, remarked on his size ! I feel we may not see the best of Quest until he goes chasing in a few years time judging by everyone’s remarks on his size, he’s certainly not built for bumpers.
Another who won’t like the firming ground is Surrey Gold so we can probably scrap race plans for him this week although he does have entries in case of rain, with an entry at Sandown on Friday, and he will have an entry at Leicester for Saturday. There’s also couple of potential races in early May at Redcar and Salisbury so we’ll keep an eye on the forecast but it does mean race planning is a bit finger in the air!
No such ground concerns for Surrey Pride who had been planning to run on Tuesday at Epsom, but unfortunately Pride has taken a bang – probably in his box, and now has a swollen hock. Joe doesn’t think it’s that serious, there’s probably no need for an x-ray, but he’ll have to go on antibiotics for a week which will stop him from racing. All being well he can start cantering again midweek and we go again from the bank holiday weekend. Such is the frustration of being a racehorse owner.
Surrey Mist had a barrier trial at Lingfield this week that went well. Mist had two goes, the first time the horses just went into the stalls and then ran for 200 yards before having another go. Mist was pretty slow initially but much better the second time completing the 7 furlong course against 7 other horses. Shane Kelly rode him and provided good feedback afterwards, saying he travelled really well, handled the tight bend and the artificial surface at Lingfield but said he felt like a tall horse and a tad weak, therefore we shouldn’t start too soon with him. He’ll want 7 furlongs on debut as we have said before so that probably ties in nicely with those races not being until the end of May/early June.
Surrey Princess is well and George will look for races for her soon, looking for early May to run over a mile plus, so look out for entries in about 2 weeks time. After a cursory glance at the fixtures, there’s not a great deal of choice, Nottingham on the 7th May stands out to me.
No new news on Surrey Knight who continues going about his business in a professional way.
Breeze up sales started last week at Tattersals in Newmarket, we had a look but nothing really stood out for us so we’ll move on to Goffs’ sale this week. If you are interested in a share of a two year then please get in touch.
Fantastic to see owners back on the racecourse this week, with pilot events in other sports up and down the country it won’t be long before racehorse owners get their full compliment of passes to hopefully enjoy seeing our horses in the winning enclosure!