Weekly Update - 9th May
I think we can finally say the cold weather is now behind us, the rain has come which suits most of our horses, and we are about to get busier!
I hope those syndicate owners who went to Seven Barrows on Friday had an enjoyable morning. Nicky did say with the rain coming, and the fact that Gran Luna hadn’t had too many races that there was no reason for her not to have another handicap hurdle race, especially as she was fit and well. We haven’t heard anything from Nicky to suggest otherwise, but apparently he’s changed his mind. We will have to chase him again next week.
Surrey Quest is ready to run, and looking at where Nicky would prefer him to go, I think therefore it will be on Wednesday 19th at Southwell’s evening meeting. He’s been working well although Nicky mentioned again that he can get a bit ‘stuffy’ when he does hard work, which may suggest a breathing issue but we won’t really know until he’s had his first run.
Surrey Knight is well and Charlie said that actually his week off after a knock had been good for him, he’s now back on the gallops. It was great to see his half-sister (Mighty Blue) win a listed race over 1 mile 6 furlongs in the week – if that had happened before the sale then Knight would have cost £50k more, especially as Mighty Blue is out of Authorized whose stud fee is €12 500 whilst Knight’s sire Le Havre is €40 000. All good signs so far.
Thanks to the responses for the Newmarket visit, there’s plenty of room still so if you do want to come put your name down! It would be great to see the owners and prospective racehorse owners, and with a National Stud tour and lunch, what’s holding you back?
This week could be busy with three horses entered to run. First up will be Surrey Princess at Salisbury as she’s currently scheduled to run in the 2.55 but that could change with the race dividing and an extra race being added to the card. It’s a class 5 Fillies only novice race to be run over 10 furlongs with most likely Pat Cosgrave riding. George and the team will be treating this as her debut, hoping that she settles, and enjoys the run.
The following day we have two entries, although Surrey Gold’s is more of a ‘soft’ entry as Hughie is keeping his options open so we’ll chat more with him in the week. It’s the 3.55 at Newbury (who shockingly only offer 4 owners passes) a three year old only class 4 (0-85) over 11 furlongs. Surrey Gold was treated very well by the handicapper this week, being left on his current mark of 75. We’re not totally sure if we should be pleased or insulted !
Surrey Pride will definitely be running at York on Friday. Joe is happy after Pride had a good fast piece of work Friday with Oisin Murphy riding him and we will go to York confident of a good run in a very competitive class 2 (0-100) handicap over 10 furlongs, the 2.40 race, which is scheduled to be live on ITV4. Joe does feel that Pride is at least 10 pound better than his current 90 mark so we hope to use the weight advantage against some pretty classy opponents.
With a few racehorse owners going to races now, it’s worth noting that everyone who attends racing needs to complete the ROA e-covid learning , and you will also need to make sure you bring photo ID to racing.
Fingers crossed we will be celebrating more success at the end of the week!