April - The Flat Season !
April and the Flat Season is with us !!
It was nice to see another horse make a debut in the week and we thought Surrey Noir was pretty solid despite not seeing out the 7 furlongs. Noir bounced back from his race this week and is happily back on the gallops. Charlie was very pleased with how he ran, and was especially pleased that both horse and trainer learnt so much from the outing. He’ll be back out again in 4-5 weeks time, on grass, possibly over 6 furlongs although Charlie didn’t rule out an easy 7f. We thought it was a great first outing in the perfect race, plenty of take aways. Matt Coleman, who bought Noir, thought that he was further ahead mentally than where he thought he would be, but certainly needs time to mature physically, he’s still a big lump! There aren’t too many options available in England through April, although with French Premiums a maiden in France is an idea, where prize money is 6-7 times what it is here. You may have noticed that Noir wore a hood to the start, Charlie may think travelling over could be too unsettling but it’s something we will discuss with him over the next few weeks.
Talking of France, we are back out there in 2 weeks time with Surrey Mist where the plan for the next race is the Listed Prix Lord Seymour at Longchamp on Sunday April 16th, with the post time likely to be around 4pm (local). There were a few options here and overseas, including an entry in a Group 2 in Cologne, but Kevin felt that the listed would be less competitive and the prize money is the same, although we will have to carry a listed win penalty but only 1 kg. The ground should be ok, it will probably be dryer by then but not rattling fast, the distance is back to a mile and a half, and the added bonus that there are three French Classic (Group 3s) prep races on the card. Come and join us ?!
Speaking of prize money, Bath’s card on Good Friday has pretty good prize money on offer – and it shows that big fields can be attracted, with over 70 entries for a 0-52 race with £13k to the winner, and a total of over 400 entries for 7 races! Well done to Bath Racecourse.
We did have a couple of entries this weekend for Surrey Quest, one over hurdles and one over fences. I’m not sure Nicky really is sure what type of race to run in next, despite Quest schooling well, it continues to be frustrating. In regard to Uttoxeter and Ascot, Nicky felt the ground would be heavy although favoured Ascot, although he didn’t feel Quest would be that competitive in what looks a hot race. We asked him to find us a race where he thought we would be competitive! It was good to see Quest becoming a social media star this week – with nearly 40 000 views on Twitter alone!
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheJockeyClub/status/1642101244801208321
Also in April we will hopefully see Surrey Charm make her debut for Hughie – although at the start of March we were hoping for more than the 2 runs we had – lets see what April brings. We are catching up with Hughie this week so will update on all three next week.
No real news on the others, the two 2 year olds, Surrey Fire and Surrey Force, are progressing nicely and are further ahead than their trainers would have thought at the start of the year. We are still hoping the two NH horses, Surrey Fortune and Surrey Lord, get a bumper in before the season is out, but we won’t rush them at all, what you save now you reap in later years.
Have a super week ahead