Boxing Day update
We hope Santa delivered all that you wished for, and you and your families enjoyed the festivities. However, spare a thought to some of our syndicate owners who are missing loved ones, the suffering harder at this time of the year, and also thoughts and prayers for those horse racing owners and their families who are battling bigger health issues – hopefully 2022 brings you some cheer.
It does put the frustrations of horse racing into perspective but those good days really need to be enjoyed because they don’t come around too often. Speaking of frustrations, Surrey Princess has yet to fully sparkle on the gallops and despite out best endeavours to have her (hopefully) winning as a 3 year old that’s not going to happen. The next date we will look is at Lingfield on Friday 7th and the plan remains to have two runs before the sale on February 3rd/4th.
We still have two runners before the year is out though with both Gran Luna and Surrey Quest running a few minutes apart on Wednesday.
Gran Luna has been declared in the 12.15 at Newbury, a mares only handicap over 2 miles with Nico riding. We have spoken to Nicky and he thinks that it’s not the distance that’s an issue for Luna. Nicky and Nico think soft ground, mares only, on a galloping track (left handed) ticks a lot of boxes and actually he’d prefer 2 miles as he wouldn’t want a 2.5 mile slog in the heavy ground. That makes sense to us, there’s only 7 competitors so fingers crossed and good luck to connections.
Surrey Quest has been declared the same day at Doncaster – the 12.28, a novice hurdle over 2.5 miles, it does look a perfect race. Nicky doesn’t have a main jockey at Doncaster so we will have his apprentice Nathan Brennan riding (and taking the 6 lb penalty off for winning at Leicester – he claims 7 lbs). Quest is an easy ride so we’re ok with that. It looks a competitive novice with 12 runners, but we feel we go with every chance.
Both horses also have entries made today (after declaring for Wednesday). Gran Luna has an entry at Exeter on Saturday 1 January, the 3.35pm - a Mares' Handicap Hurdle (Class 3, 0-125 ) over 2m 2.5 furlongs and Surrey Quest has one at Plumpton on Sunday 2nd, the 1.10pm EBF 'National Hunt' Novices' Hurdle (Class 3) over 2.5 miles. Back up plans if the going gets unraceable this week.
Not too much other news on the rest of the horses – they all turn a year older next Saturday (and the two year old’s prices rise). It’s still so exciting that 6 of the 9 have yet to run more than twice so all of those dreams are very much still alive and we think we go into 2022 with our best ever set of horses.
Something else to share – maybe it’s an old tradition but at Christmas most of our trainers send details of where to pay tips for the hard working stable staff for their Christmas box. Training costs continue to rise so we don’t feel the need to pay additional fees to stable staff at Christmas time, but we do award a minimum of £100 to the staff’s shared kitty every time one of horses wins. We feel that is a fairer, possibly a more lucrative way of rewarding those who put in a lot of time and effort to make sure our horses are best prepared.
Good luck to the syndicate owners this week, enjoy the week and the New Year celebrations !
Entries and Other Possible Plans/Events 2021
December
Wednesday 29th – Gran Luna – Newbury - 12.15
Wednesday 29th – Surrey Quest – Doncaster – 12.28
2022
January
Saturday 1st – Gran Luna - Exeter
Sunday 2nd – Surrey Quest - Plumpton
Friday 7th – Surrey Princess - Lingfield
Saturday 22nd – Charlie Fellowes stable visit for Noir and Knight owners
February
Thursday/Friday 3rd-4th Tattersalls February Sale
March
Saturday 26th – Surrey Knight – Doncaster (Maiden Stakes)
July
Sunday 3rd – Surrey Knight (153rd German Derby, Hamburg)
https://www.deutscher-galopp.de/gr/renntage/rennen.php?id=1330172&d=20220703&s=N