End of April update
Well – we should have had our first win of the year with Surrey Noir on Thursday but had to settle for a very unlucky second place with James Doyle finding a fair bit of trouble in running. There’s no doubting Surrey Noir was the best horse in the race but that’s racing and we’d rather be unlucky in an early career maiden than a prestigious race with more at stake. He’s a big horse and does take a while to get going so a straight 6f on grass will suit better but the sole reason for going to Chelmsford was to win, unfortunately that didn’t quite work out. The winner was running off 5 pounds better than us and is already rated 65 so you would think she will jump to 68 which makes our run around 72-73 which is not a bad place to be after only a second run and Noir will learn from the difficulties he faced in this race. He took the prelims really well and certainly seems to like a day at the races. Charlie was very happy with the run and his initial thoughts were to get him racing on grass with the next target a novice race at Doncaster’s evening meeting on May 20th or similar on the following Saturday at Salisbury.
So much for a busy April, just the two runs, but hopefully a busier May but it does look increasingly unlikely that our NH horses won’t be running until the new season. Surrey Fortune and Surrey Lord are in great shape and while a May bumper hasn’t been ruled out we think both will probably take a break at the end of the month and come back in ready to go in September/October. Surrey Quest is moving this week from Seven Barrows to Jackie du Plessis’ yard in Cornwall and Jackie will get her vet to conduct a thorough examination of Quest. Not only does Jackie have a lovely facility where Quest can have a proper summer break, but she is excellent at identifying issues with horses. She has looked after both Surrey Hope and Surrey Gold and been excellent both in terms of identifying issues and rehabilitation. When we had horses with Dan Skelton, we sent them to Jackie for their summer breaks and he always commented how well the horses were, both physically and mentally, on their return.
We hope to see Surrey Charm and Surrey Belle on the track in May. Charm has had a temperature so she’s been on the easy list this week so hopefully she’ll be back to work and Hughie can find a suitable seasonal opener. Surrey Knight has settled back into the yard perfectly and after a couple of days trotting, he started doing some steady canters. He has already had a steady canter up Long Hill Grass and Charlie will try and use the grass as much as possible going forward.
The two young horses, Surrey Fire and Surrey Force are coming along really nicely, I think a few of you will be surprised how much they have both grown when you see them in a few weeks time.
Surrey Mist is fine although the Newbury race did take out more out of him than Kevin initially thought. Kevin was disappointed with the run, and whilst we know there is a mitigating circumstance Kevin thought he shouldn’t have been that bad. He did speak to the handicapper on Monday who said that the horses at Newbury on Friday all performed as expected, but on Saturday, horses either performed 20 lbs better than their mark, or 30 lbs worse, which does suggest the ground played a key role in a lot of horse’s performance. For the next race Kevin would like to go back to a handicap and slightly softer company to get Mist back on track especially as we have been lowered to a mark of 102 which we think is a favourable. The aim is a class 2 handicap at York’s Dante meeting on Wednesday 17th May with half an eye on the Ebor at York at the end of August.
Possible races and events
2023
May
Saturday 13th – Knight and Noir Owners visit to Charlie Fellowes
Sunday 14th – Mist and Force owners invited to Kevin’s Spring BBQ
Tuesday 16th – Surrey Racing Golf Day
Wednesday 17th – Surrey Mist - York
Thursday 18th – Surrey Belle - Salisbury
Saturday 20th – Fire, Belle and Charm Owners visit to Hughie Morrison’s
Surrey Noir – Doncaster
Saturday 27th – Surrey Noir - Salisbury