The Derby Update

I hope you all enjoyed the Derby, a fantastic performance by Adayar who beat some horses by further than he beat Surrey Gold on Gold’s debut at Nottingham, with an interesting form line through Alpine Stroll. There’s also no doubt that the form from Gold’s romp at Newbury is solid and if we make the Royal Ascot cut coupled with some rain, we would certainly be turning up with a live chance.

Unfortunately Surrey Princess trotted up fractionally lame this week. George and the vet has advised two weeks of "box rest", and to re-assess at that stage to determine whether she can return to full work. This is not a catastrophic or traumatic injury, but could have evolved into one if left unaddressed and to which end we will obviously follow veterinary advice. Obviously this is frustrating as it clearly precludes our intended race target on 10th June but is not in any way a major injury, and we expect her to return to full work in a matter of weeks. 

Surrey Pride has been entered into the John Smiths Cup on Saturday July 10th. As expected it’s going to be touch and go whether we make the final cut, there’s been 83 entrants and we have 39 ahead of us in the weights. We’ll have more of an idea at the scratching stage on June 15th. We saw Joe at the sales this week and he said Pride is very well and thinks we still have every chance of making the race. It was good to see the first three home in Redcar’s Zetland Cup, plus Blue Cup winning at Epsom on Oaks Day – all good form boosts.

No real news on the other horses, the jumpers are on holiday and the two youngsters are still going through their paces.

We went to the Goresbridge Tattersalls Breeze Up sale this week in Newmarket. It was really the last chance to secure a 2 year old to probably go into training with Joe. Unfortunately, it was the same as the other sales, inflated amounts being spent for inferior horses which we really find hard to comprehend. We were outbid on a couple and another we paid for a vet to look over him beforehand but he failed with a wind issue. For the money we would have to spend we could buy 2 better bred yearlings although it does remain to be seen how strong the yearling market is this year. We are just no prepared to buy inferior horses to satisfy demand and marketing.  

Enjoy a sunny week ahead and start practicing the rain dance for the following week!