A Lovely Update
We love a winner!
Since Christmas we’ve had 4 horses running a total of 7 times, they have all won, with 2 places, it’s just fantastic that all of those syndicate owners have had a winner. We did make the most of Chelmsford’s hospitality, Friday nights in Essex are still fun!
It was lovely to see Surrey Princess finally break her maiden in a pretty authoritative performance and not any point did she look like losing although it certainly helped having the best jockey in the race onboard. Simon said after that she was very relaxed throughout but did idle once she hit the front, which is probably no surprise as she’s not been in that position before. He said she’d get 12 furlongs although no harm in sticking with 10.
She has come out of the race really well although with the run and a longish journey she has lost a fair bit of weight so she won’t be running at Lingfield next Saturday. We’ll see what the handicapper does, which we don’t think will be much as she won by a length from a 50 rated horse and look to run again next month, maybe even waiting for the turf. We never take winning for granted, there were 10 year old maidens in that race, so it’s brilliant when it happens!
There are some images from the race here
We are really pleased for George as well who was getting frustrated seeing other trainers have winners for us but what a great 8 days for him and the team. He writes about Friday in his daily blog.
https://www.georgebakerracing.com/gbr-racing-blog/
His record for us, 2 wins from 9 runs is pretty good going. Surrey Mist is very well but didn’t get a handicap mark this week so options are a little limited for him over the next 6 weeks. We did look at Conditions Races on the turf in France but most of them require a previous run in France. There is a potential race in Paris on April 5th which we may look at but before then he’d have to run well in a novice (which he would carry a 5 lb penalty for his Lingfield win). Likely targets for that are mid March at Wolves (11th March) or Kempton (16th) .
No new news on Surrey Charm but please do go down and see her whenever is convenient for you and George.
Surrey Knight is progressing nicely now and has a solid week cantering last week. As long as he continues to exercise without hitch over the next fortnight then he should be pretty close to starting galloping and therefore well on the road to hitting a racetrack. He is much happier now Charlie has increased his workload and clearly took offence to being made to be lead horse for lots of horrible snotty yearlings!
Talking of which, Surrey Noir, mid week he gave a couple of coughs and was quieter than normal. Charlie will keep an eye on him over the next couple of days, but it may be that he needs a short course of low-grade antibiotics and an easy weeks exercise to help get him over a little cold. It’s very common with the youngsters to pick up coughs and colds and actually, to have a quieter week, really does more good than harm.
Surrey Gold is fine and will be coming back into training the week after next, and possibly being joined by Surrey Belle so that they both can get a couple of weeks work in before we visit Hughie’s yard on March 5th.
We did catch up with Nicky this week. Surrey Quest seems back to full fitness and with the next stage of entry for the Ballymore at Cheltenham this Tuesday, Nicky was keen to see him join his top string working on the gallops to see how he is. It would appear that he probably won’t have a run before mid March, we’ll let you know midweek how he’s been working but indications are that he’s been going pretty well this weekend.
Finally – Nicky said Gran Luna is very well would be soon looking for a race for her over 2.5 miles so it was a bit of a shock to see her entered into a two miles handicap at Sandown on Thursday! It’s the first race on Sandown’s 7 race card. I would think we need a fair bit of rain to make it the test she needs and the forecast is unsettled with potential for rain on most days from tomorrow where 10 mm is expected. Fingers crossed for some testing ground especially with a team hat trick beckoning! Can February get even better?!
There will be plenty of love for Gran Luna on Thursday, good luck to the owners at Sandown !
Entries and Other Possible Plans/Events 2021
2022
February
Thursday 17th – Gran Luna – Sandown -1.10
March
Saturday 5th – Hughie Morrison Stable visit for Belle and Gold Owners
Friday 11th – Surrey Mist - Wolves
Wednesday 16th – Surrey Quest – Cheltenham – Ballymore
- Surrey Mist - Kempton
Saturday 26th – Surrey Knight – Doncaster (Maiden Stakes)
April
Tuesday 5th – Surrey Mist – St Cloud
July
Sunday 3rd – Surrey Knight (153rd German Derby, Hamburg) ) 92 left in – next stage Mar 7th
https://www.deutscher-galopp.de/gr/renntage/rennen.php?id=1330172&d=20220703&s=N