Spring Weekly Update
Firstly a very warm welcome to two new horse racing syndicate owners, Alex and Ian who joined us this week. We’re looking forward to meeting them, the other newbies, and catching up with everyone else real soon. As from tomorrow 2 horse racing owners are allowed at the racecourse although without hospitality, not ideal but it’s a start. From April 12th 6 syndicate owners will be allowed back on the track with outdoor hospitality, which I know is going to cause some issues with you all wanting to go horse racing!!
It was great to see so many dial in for our zoom call again on Wednesday evening with a very entertaining Charlie Fellowes. He’s certainly a young ambitious man who we feel is going places. For those who missed the call – the customary recap ! Surrey Knight is in great shape and has surprised Charlie in the past few weeks as he’s finding the Warren Hill gallop a lot easier, which for a horse of his size and scope, shouldn’t really be the case just yet, he’s still a baby really. Charlie is very excited about him, he takes everything in his stride and considering he’s very well bred with Group 1 pedigree all over his page, we are extremely excited about the possibilities. He’s currently having mixed days on the gallops, Newmarket has fantastic facilities, and as Charlie says, if you can’t train there you won’t be able to train anywhere. Charlie thought Newmarket was more intense than Lambourn, with so many horses and people associated within the industry. He said it can be a bit weird at times! It’s still too early to say when Surrey Knight will make his debut, late summer more than likely, he’ll probably debut over a mile but for sure he’s a mile and half horse as a three year old. Being French Bred and with the premiums on offer for winning in France, French racing will certainly come into consideration when looking at the programme of races available. More UK trainers running their horses in France in the past few weeks it does seem that at least some of the Brexit issues are beginning to be ironed out. Unfortunately he doesn’t see the level of prize money changing much here in the UK, he puts the blame solely at the bookmakers but didn’t think their attitudes will change and prize money will be an issue for many years to come.
Charlie enjoyed talking about Prince of Arran and the exploits he’s had with him around the globe, especially in the three Melbourne Cups he’s run in and placed every time, with last year being the hardest to take, where he didn’t get a clear run which undoubtedly stopped him from winning the top prize. He said it does take a certain horse to enjoy these types of races and he was lucky with Prince of Arran. He said the cost of entering, travel and the stay in Australia is about £150k so you need to be sure of picking up some prize money over there! Having said that, visiting the Melbourne Cup in any capacity should be one of the top entries on your bucket list!
We visited George’s this week and I have to say I came away being very impressed with the two of ours there. Surrey Princess has grown a little higher but really filled out. She looks great although to be fair our main worries with her are her mental self rather than physical, but she’s been ridden by a young lad who has settled her down and I didn’t see anything about her that was cause for concern. We’ll only know for sure once she gets back racing which won’t be too long now. She will have a racecourse gallop as soon as the authorities allow them to restart, hopefully mid April, and then we’ll discuss her again then. We cannot believe how much Surrey Mist has grown ! To me, a few months ago, he looked a little pocket rocket of a sprinter but he’s actually turned pretty leggy, and because of that growth he’s probably needs a bit more time before his debut. He will have a barrier trial at Lingfield mid April and then probably a debut early May, which will be over a stiff 6f or 7f. There’s no doubt looking at him that he’ll be a mile plus horse though.
Surrey Gold is another who looks great on the gallops – Hughie seems to be talking more optimistically about him every time we speak with him! Gold will almost certainly run at Leicester on April 24th. Surrey Pride will probably be running just before that on the 20th at Epsom – his options in April are pretty limited - with the flat season underway, I think this is the best set of horses we’ve ever had and we are extremely excited about following them around the country and possibly further afield this season.
The two jumps horses had mixed reports this week. Unfortunately Gran Luna coughed after work on Tuesday and a subsequent scope showed a small amount of blood. This opens up the possibility that she maybe she bled after her poor run at Market Rasen. Scoping at the racecourse is prohibited at the moment so we won’t know for sure but certainly we all thought there must have been more of an explanation that just a stiff course. She has been on medication which prevents her from running this week. The plan is to give her a proper piece of work on Saturday and if all is well, Nicky will look for a race in about 10 days time. To be honest, until she runs again we don’t know whether this is a minor issue (the amount of blood was small) or something more serious. Obviously being a mare we do have other options if the bleeding is more serious but lets wait and see what happens over the next few weeks.
Better reports for Surrey Quest who is in great physical shape. Nicky hasn’t wanted to work him too hard while he was growing but now he’s picked up the pace and he’s doing some faster work. We should get a good idea of his debut date in the next week or so, but he’s going out his business in a pretty professional way and Nicky is pretty excited about him.
Finally – with lockdown easing, and golf restarting tomorrow, it’s a good time to announce the 2nd Surrey Racing Horse Racing Owner’s Golf Day ! It will be on Thursday May 27th at the Silvermere Golf Course in Cobham, teeing off at 11, a late lunch, and then to cap the day, if there’s any interest we can try to organise evening racing at Sandown, which has three class 1 races including the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard.